


Last Call

by hereonourstreet



Category: Given (Anime), Given (Manga)
Genre: Anal Sex, Angst, Bands, Break Up, Fluff, Getting Back Together, M/M, Post-Break Up, Smut, Time Skips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-20
Updated: 2020-08-17
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:13:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 26,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25960387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hereonourstreet/pseuds/hereonourstreet
Summary: Mafuyu and Uenoyama broke up in college; Mafuyu disappeared soon after that. Now Uenoyama is thirty and still chasing a feeling he lost when given disbanded. Of course, he's not expecting to run into Mafuyu again. Nor is he expecting it to go anywhere when he does. He's not expecting a lot, but Mafuyu always did manage to surprise him.Post-canon, break up and maybe getting back together fic. There's one smutty scene but it's mostly SFW. I took some liberties but tried to stick to what's canon to this point (but who knows what will happen in the manga later on). This is way angstier than I usually write but I don't want to say if the ending is sad or not because that'll spoil it. Just know that if you're looking for fluff alone, this might not be it (though it's pretty damn fluffy too).
Relationships: Satou Mafuyu/Uenoyama Ritsuka
Comments: 26
Kudos: 91





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> some notes beforehand:  
> \- Japan apparently doesn't really have last call the same way America does but i didn't research that beforehand so just. i'm sorry  
> \- in this story, akihiko and haruki broke up so if you're super against that, just know it going in but they're only mentioned, they're not in it  
> \- i couldn't decide as i was writing whether i wanted it to be a oneshot or chaptered fic so if some transitions are odd, thats why  
> \- there's a lot of vagueness with a few plot points because of the previous point but everything should make sense  
> \- i actually beta read this for once but i have a reading disorder so i always miss SOMETHING  
> \- i couldnt decide if i wanted the epilogue to be separate or not but i felt like it gave it some weight if it was so make sure you read both chapters  
> \- i am feel uncomfortable when we are not about ugetsu.

### song **1.**

The place has been through a few renovations in the past fifteen years or so, but it’s mostly the same. Uenoyama thinks ownership has changed hands quite a bit; there was fighting between two families or something, there were some articles in the paper about a rival venue down the street and how the namesake was trademarked or something or other - he has no idea. All he understands is that it’s been here for decades, surviving the elements of inclement familial weather, housing the town’s latest and greatest bands.

It once housed his band, but that’s old news. Yeah, he used to stand under this roof with a few people he thought were going to be there the rest of his life, but that’s old news. They’re not around anymore. He comes here alone and listens to - new news, or whatever it might be called. Up-and-coming musicians who want to make it big. He once thought about making it big. But that’s old news.

He’s not  _ totally  _ unknown - most of the musicians here are aware that he runs the music shop across town and is willing to sell local bands’ demos, especially because he has a few regular customers who enjoy that sort of thing. He also may or may not have a few regular customers who have ties with labels. These customers sometimes still try to convince him to sign with someone.  _ But who will run the store?  _ he always asks. They roll their eyes because they both know he can hand it over to someone else if he really wanted to. It’s his way of saying thanks, but no thanks. That’s his old life.

That’s old news.

But he’s a musician through and through. He couldn’t give it up. He took over the store from the previous owner so he didn’t have to do the heavy lifting of actually starting from the ground up. They hired him as a teacher so they had a lot of faith in him by then - and most of the practices were in place already, most brands already in stock and return business already loyal. They handed the whole business over to him when they wanted to retire and he’s always been terrified of failing. Disappointing them. But so far all is well and business is pretty good, considering the climate. Giving out music for free online is definitely the smartest route these days, but actually selling it is harder. He can make them more money - take less of a cut - than most online distributors do, so local bands especially give him their loyalty. It helps that he actually knows music - and is fairly personable. That’s something he worked on over the years but he thinks of himself as pretty easy going these days.

But what they really appreciate is that he still plays guitar now and then. It’s not exactly a rare occurrence, but he doesn’t always do it in public. He helps out a friend - a fellow guitarist who isn’t quite as talented as Uenoyama but has a voice to kill for - until he can find a permanent band. The thing is, standing in for a regular guitarist has been going on for about two years now and there’s no end in sight. It’s like he’s cycling through bassists and drummers until Uenoyama finally gives up and joins him for real - but that’s not going to happen. Uenoyama plays guitar.

But he doesn’t do bands anymore.

The last band he was in broke up because the drummer got married and quit. Everyone gave up after that and they just disbanded. It was a pretty anticlimactic end to a fairly mediocre band. Before that, the band broke up because the singer got signed by a label and left them in the dust. Uenoyama didn’t seem to care as much as everyone else, but they got pretty pissed and couldn’t stand to play together anymore. And before that, well… he doesn’t think about that band too much. They broke up because the bassist and the drummer broke up. Then Uenoyama and the singer went to college and broke up, too. He had a band before that one too, but he doesn’t even remember what they were called anymore.

Of all of those bands, the only one he can’t stand remembering is given. 

Yeah, he always acknowledged to himself that it was a pretty hilarious coincidence that he ended up becoming a music teacher when he was so insistent he couldn’t do it as a kid. Sometimes he mentions his first student ever to the current ones, tells them he was the most persistent boy he’d ever met in his life. He uses him as motivation for them; he conveniently leaves out that this was in high school and that boy broke his heart later on, because it doesn’t really matter. At least, it doesn’t matter in those situations.

Of course Mafuyu matters to him, but that’s old news.

The break up wasn’t pretty. It wasn’t the messiest thing either, but he certainly tries not to think about it anymore. They wanted different things  _ and  _ each other, but they couldn’t make it work. The music eventually came between them. They decided to try being friends instead so they could stay in a band together - the music was their connection, after all. Maybe things would work out if they focused on that for a while instead of romance.

They didn’t. They broke it off completely, finished university and moved on. They did start talking a bit a few years later, but only online, and then Mafuyu disappeared off social media altogether so it’s been about six or seven years since Uenoyama last spoke to him. All his subsequent heartbreaks were easy compared to that, but that’s because Mafuyu was his first love… even though he wasn’t Mafuyu’s.

It’s not Mafuyu’s fault Uenoyama didn’t like the other relationships he’s been in, though. He was simply the last person who really understood him that well which isn’t  _ great,  _ considering they broke up at age twenty. Uenoyama is creeping up on his thirty-first birthday now, so it’s probably about time he finds someone. It’s just that he’s simply not that interested in doing so. Yayoi makes fun of him for being single and his parents want him to settle down, but mostly, he’s unbothered. He’s making his way at the music shop and all in all, he’s pretty happy with his life.

So why he comes here alone to chase some sort of feeling he knows he’ll never find again is beyond him.

There’s just something that isn’t there anymore. He’s never felt with anyone the way he felt with given. It wasn’t just Mafuyu - though he was a big part of it. It was the whole band. It was Haruki and Akihiko, too. He never really knew their whole story, but of course they couldn’t make it work - at least, he doesn’t think they ever got back together, but he wouldn’t know because he lost touch with them, too. And he doesn’t really feel the need to reconnect. It would just remind him of something that he lost. Something he can’t ever get back. Given was magical in a way he’ll never recapture, so why even try?

But it was a pretty big deal in the local music world when given disbanded. They were darlings of the city and it’s not like it was in any of the papers or anything, but people were pretty disappointed to find out they quit playing together. No one understood exactly how much it hurt Uenoyama and he doesn’t want them to. Because if other people pity him, it’ll hurt that much more. He can’t think back to a time where his reputation preceded him without feeling some sort of exhausting nostalgia, a completely useless human emotion as far as he’s concerned. So  _ why  _ does he come here, month after month, just to watch all these young people in bands? People the age he was when he was in the glory days. It’s all so much and he doesn’t want to deal with it.

That’s why he ends up getting a few drinks every time he’s here.

It’s not like he comes  _ that  _ often. Just once or twice a month and he’s not  _ always  _ alone. But for the most part, he comes here because he feels compelled. There’s something here, still waiting for him, after all this time. He used to play that stage. The first time he ever heard Mafuyu sing the song he wrote for him was on that stage. There  _ must  _ be something here. Uenoyama feels a responsibility, almost, to find it. Until he manages to let go of something. Something really deep inside him. Something he needs to stop caring about so that he can be really free of all this.

Or maybe it’s that he needs to  _ find  _ something again.

The bar is a little crowded tonight; more than usual, at least. In fact, when he looks into the crowd, the entire place is a little overrun. He notices the workers are rushing around a little faster than normal. He almost wants to offer to help. They know who he is, after all. But he’s already a little tipsy and what can he really do other than give the anxious bartender time to get to him? He waits longer this time for his turn to order, but when she finally shows up, she gives him a smile. She’s glad to see him. He smiles back, hands over more than he needs to and tells her to keep it. He just wants one last beer for the night. She tries to refuse but he insists and she grabs his hand to thank him haphazardly. 

She’s nice. He thinks she knows he’s gay. He isn’t sure.

She unscrews a bottle open and then slams it down in front of him before moving onto the next person. Uenoyama doesn’t know what he’s in for when he grabs it and begins to turn around.

Because the thing is, what really happens is that he sees him out of the corner of his eye. He’s in the process of turning towards the stage when he sees orange hair and his first thought is  _ huh, looks like Mafuyu’s.  _ That’s not uncommon though. He doesn’t think about him on a daily basis but at least a few times a year he catches himself reminiscing in a way that’s bad for his health - mental  _ and _ physical, because he’s bound to give himself a heart attack. He always has to stop his train of thought, convince himself it’s not worth pondering where Mafuyu is now. There’s no ‘what might have happened’ about it - what happened has happened. That’s Uenoyama’s story with Mafuyu, and it was brought to a close a long time ago. That chapter is over.

But his head whips back anyway, because he’s hoping beyond hope that a new one is about to start.

It’s not the  _ first _ time he’s ever seen Mafuyu, but it is love at first sight.

His heart starts racing. Isn’t Mafuyu in Tokyo? He was the last time he heard from him, at least. He thought surely he’d moved on from there - or maybe he was married with kids by this point. He still could be - not actually married with kids, but taken, that is. Uenoyama squints and the other man squints back.

It’s definitely him. It’s Mafuyu.

There’s no ring on his finger and unless he’s out cheating, that must mean something, right? He’s single? Maybe he has a boyfriend. All sorts of thoughts fire off in Uenoyama’s brain before he realizes that Mafuyu seems just as speechless as he does.

Is Mafuyu falling in love all over again, too? 

Oh, God. Uenoyama forgot the fluttering in his stomach that would happen when he was near Mafuyu. He forgot how light-headed he got at the thought of kissing him. He forgot how terrified he was the first night they had sex. He forgot how anxious he got when Mafuyu moved close to him, not because he didn’t want it but because he wanted it  _ so badly, so very badly. _

Oh,  _ God.  _ Uenoyama forgot his  _ voice. _

“Uenoyama-kun.”

It’s the same. The same voice as back then; the voice he hasn’t heard in person in so long. He’s heard it in recordings - every now and then someone at the store plays an old given song and Uenoyama doesn’t know how to tell them about the heartbreak he endured with the guy who belongs to this angelic voice - he just never thought he’d hear it in person ever again. But it’s exactly the same. He doesn’t know why it would change but a lot of things have changed since college, so why wouldn’t Mafuyu’s voice be one of them? 

“Uenoyama-kun?”

He’s standing right in front of him, cocking his head to the side, softly asking if he’s there. Mentally. Physically, he’s sitting on a bar stool, staring into Mafuyu’s eyes like he’s some sort of spectre. But it takes him a moment to collect himself emotionally.

“Mafuyu.”

His own voice is soft when it comes out too, but not the way Mafuyu’s is. Mafuyu has a natural gentility to his; Uenoyama’s is just… overwhelmed. 

“What are you doing here?”

Uenoyama has to think about the question. He has to register it, understand it, evaluate it, think of an answer, and then say it. Verbalize it. Speak the answer. Speak. Speak, Uenoyama.  _ Speak. _

“What am  _ I  _ doing here?” he asks. “What are  _ you  _ doing here?”

He’s angry. Huh. He wasn’t expecting that.

“Do you want to sit down?”

“I’m already sitting down!”

“Somewhere else,” Mafuyu specifies. “Together.”

Together. Does Uenoyama want to  _ be  _ with Mafuyu? Does he want to occupy the same physical space as him, breathe the same air as him, after all these years, does he want to spend time with Mafuyu?

Uenoyama once heard a story of a kid who had a crush on a girl in his class and didn’t know what to do about it so he wrote her a note. It said, “Get out of my school.” That’s how he feels right now. Get out of my town. This is your home too, but you left it. It’s mine now. You leave.

“Sure,” he mutters, standing up with his beer and staring Mafuyu down. “But wait.”

He buys him a drink. Mafuyu orders himself something - a mixed drink but Uenoyama doesn’t hear what - and they find someplace a little further away from the stage. There’s only one band left tonight anyway and they seem to be taking forever to start. 

“Remember when Haruki had to ask Take-chan to go long for us?” Mafuyu asks. “When I broke the string.”

He brings this stuff up like it’s nothing. He talks about a past that still haunts Uenoyama, and he talks about it like he’s over it. Like he laughs when he looks back on it. All Uenoyama wants to do is cry. And curl up in the fetal position.

“Yeah,” he says. “I remember that.”

Mafuyu smiles at him and that’s all it takes. That one little smile and all the anger melts away. But Uenoyama isn’t going to make it that easy on him.

“So why are you here?” he asks. “I thought you were in Tokyo.”

“Ah,” Mafuyu says a little sadly. “I was. But I moved back.”

Uenoyama nearly chokes on his beer.

“You moved back… permanently?”

“Yeah.”

“Why would you do that?”

Mafuyu doesn’t seem to register the shock and disregard Uenoyama has for him, and when he answers him, Uenoyama is grateful:

“My mom got sick. I came back to take care of her.”

Uenoyama softens completely. He knows Mafuyu’s mom. She was very kind and very accepting of him. And it wasn’t her son being gay that she was tolerating - it was her son moving on from his first boyfriend so quickly that she understood. She never questioned them or gave Uenoyama a hard time. She didn’t test him. She didn’t try to make him prove his worth. She just accepted that her son felt a certain way about him, he felt a certain way about her son, and that was it. She even offered to help him get Mafuyu a gift on his birthday the first year they were together.

Uenoyama doesn’t remember what that gift was.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “That’s really awful.” He pauses. “Not exactly how you want to return home after a lot of time.”

“Yeah,” Mafuyu agrees. “But I don’t mind being here.”

“No?”

“No,” he shakes his head. “I’d rather my mom be well, but home isn’t a bad place.”

Uenoyama kind of smiles.  _ He’s  _ part of Mafuyu’s home. So Mafuyu is kind of saying Uenoyama isn’t so bad.

“You disappeared,” Uenoyama says. “You just left.”

Mafuyu looks at him sadly. Then he nods, like he knows that Uenoyama is saying something much larger than his words. And he is. He’s asking why. He’s asking where he went and why he’d do that to him. Why he would just leave.

“Work was rough,” he says. “It was draining. Tokyo was great and I think I could have lasted there, but it wasn’t love at first sight.”

“So you just stopped logging in?” Uenoyama asks. “Because work was draining?”

“I was a social worker,” he says. “I was helping kids in violent homes.”

Oh.

Yeah. Uenoyama supposes that would be draining. Especially for a kid from a violent home himself.

“There was a shortage,” he continues. “Of social workers. A lot of middle-aged people needed help and there weren’t enough of us so I started working outside my scope. It was fine. I wanted to help people. Then my mom… I knew I had to help her, first.”

“Yeah,” Uenoyama nods. “That’s… sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

“I just…”

Uenoyama looks at the table.

“...I really missed you.”

Mafuyu doesn’t react. He just stares like Uenoyama hadn’t just confessed to something big within minutes of seeing him again. That pisses Uenoyama off again.

“I miss you, too.”

He looks up at Mafuyu in surprise. Present tense. Uenoyama used past tense. But Mafuyu says he still misses. To this day. Maybe even in the moment. He misses Uenoyama back.

“So what are you doing?” he asks. “For work and all?”

“Uh,” Uenoyama stumbles. It’s sort of embarrassing to admit to his role in life compared to Mafuyu’s. Helping displaced children with parents who hit them versus sometimes playing average guitar in a music shop. “I… run a music store.”

Mafuyu’s eyes light up, just like they used to. It kills Uenoyama a little inside.

“Really?”

“It’s not that cool,” Uenoyama says immediately, trying to stifle Mafuyu’s excitement so it doesn’t murder him. “It’s just a music shop I took over from an old guy.”

“But it’s a music shop,” he says. “Are you still playing?”

“Uh.”

“Wow,” Mafuyu says, Uenoyama’s pause being sufficient enough of an answer for him. “That’s why you’re here.”

“I’m here because I wanted to hear music,” Uenoyama says. “But they’re taking forever.”

“Maybe they’re fixing some guitar strings.”

Uenoyama sighs. Yeah, he thinks. Maybe there are some kids back there trying to figure out how to be with each other. They never will, though. They’ll think they have it. They’ll think they have the answer. But it won’t work out. It never will.

“It’s great you still got to dedicate your life to music.”

Uenoyama winces. Dedicating his life to music. Coming here, feeling this empty, finding nothing? That’s dedicating his life to music? 

“Do you still sing?”

“Oh,” Mafuyu says quietly. “Ah… only when my office goes out to karaoke.”

Uenoyama gives a little smile.

“And I’m sure they were shocked the first time you opened your mouth.”

Mafuyu seems embarrassed. Good. Uenoyama felt pretty dumb earlier, now it’s Mafuyu’s turn.

“Yeah,” he admits. “They were.”

“And they try to convince you to go up there every time now,” he says. “And you do it.”

“Hm,” Mafuyu nods. 

“And everyone in that building stops what they’re doing to listen to you,” Uenoyama continues against his better judgment. “Because I’ve known my fair share of singers in my life but none of them come close to you.”

Mafuyu looks at him in surprise. Uenoyama expects him to tell him to shut up, but instead:

“Really?”

Uenoyama stares. Mafuyu was always cute. Uenoyama was always attracted to him. But there’s something really  _ beautiful  _ about him when he’s hanging onto his every word.

“Yeah,” he nods. “Really.”

Something on the stage falls over with a loud crash. Mafuyu jumps but Uenoyama just turns in curiosity. The lights go down just then and someone rushes to the microphone, introducing the next and final band but it’s too dark for them to make their way back before the lights come up. The band comes out and they’re…

They’re fine. They’re good. Uenoyama thinks they might be the best of the night.

They just don’t give him what he’s looking for.

“So you still play?” Mafuyu asks a few minutes after the lights come back up. The show is over and Uenoyama is finishing his beer, thinking about how he’s going to get home tonight.

“Um… yeah,” he says. “A little. I mean… just for a guy. He’s looking for a permanent band so I’m filling in.”

Mafuyu stares him down. It’s a look that Uenoyama can’t really place, so he just shakes his head at him.

“What?”

“Like you did for Hiiragi.”

Oh.

Uenoyama looks away. Hiiragi and Shizusumi were a source of conflict for them, too. He didn’t think he’d still care after all this time, though.

“Yeah, like that.” He turns back to Mafuyu, determined not to take complete fault for what happened. “What happened to them? Where are they?”

“They got married.”

“What?!”

“I’m just kidding,” Mafuyu says. “I think they’re still figuring out that they’re more than best friends, though. They still play. They’re in a band somewhere, trying to make it big.”

“You don’t know where?” 

“Kyoto somewhere,” he says. “I haven’t spoken to them in a while.”

Well, yeah. They kind of had a falling out.

“What about… Itaya?” Mafuyu asks. “And Ueki?”

“Ah,” Uenoyama says. “They’re still around here. They got married. To other people. Not each other. Itaya has a baby.”

“Really?” 

“Yeah.”

“And what about Yayoi?”

Uenoyama rolls his eyes.

“She’s fine,” he says. “Makes fun of me for being single but she’s not married, either.”

“You’re single?”

Uenoyama stops. He looks Mafuyu in the eyes, wondering what that means. Why he’s asking. He realizes they haven’t covered that part yet. He just assumed the same was true of Mafuyu but oh God, what if he’s seeing someone? What if he’s married?

“Yeah. You?”

“Mm,” Mafuyu nods. “And what about…”

“I don’t know,” Uenoyama says immediately. He knows exactly who Mafuyu’s going to ask about next and he doesn’t know. He doesn’t know about them, he doesn’t want to know about them, he’s never going to find out. “I have no idea.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

“Why not?”

“Well, why don’t you know?”

“You three were a band before I came along,” he says. “The Seasons wasn’t a-”

“Don’t talk about it,” Uenoyama warns. “I don’t want to talk about that.”

“You don’t want to talk about given?”

“No,” he says dangerously. “I don’t.”

“Why not?”

“You know why not.”

Mafuyu looks at the table. The lights flicker, signaling last call. They only have a few more minutes and Uenoyama is sincere that he doesn’t want to talk about their old band, but also worried that this might be it. He and Mafuyu might part ways after this and that’ll be the end of their reunion. 

“Then we won’t talk about it.”

Mafuyu…  _ speaks  _ more. He was always pretty straightforward. A lot more straightforward than anyone expected him to be, at least, given how quiet he was. He always  _ talked  _ to Uenoyama, but he’d let silences fall before he’d fill them. Tonight, he seems to be trying to head those quiet moments off before they happen. The quiet moments he used to love so much. Or maybe it was just that he feared otherwise. Uenoyama knows his father used to hit him when he spoke. He must have grown out of that fear. 

“So you’re around now.”

Uenoyama doesn’t know what else to say, so he says that.  _ So you’re around now.  _ So you’re in my town again. We’re occupying the same city. We could conceivably run into each other again. So. You’re around now.

“Give me your phone.”

He’s  _ very  _ straightforward.

Uenoyama hands it over nonetheless. He’s a little embarrassed to do so, but he unlocks it and goes to his contacts, lets Mafuyu put his number in. Mafuyu insists that he text him right there so he can have his number too, and he does. They’re getting chased out, having closed the place down, as Mafuyu turns left out of the venue and Uenoyama turns right.

“Text me,” Mafuyu says. “I have to go home to my mom now.”

“Alright,” Uenoyama says. “I will. Tell your mom… hi. For me.”

“I will,” he smiles. “Bye, Uenoyama-kun.”

“Bye.”

Uenoyama watches as Mafuyu turns to go. He turns around himself, staring at the ground as he wills his feet to move in the cold winter air. That’s right; it’s winter. A lot of things have happened to Mafuyu in winter. He turns around suddenly.

“Mafuyu!”

He’s not  _ too  _ far - he can hear him, at least. He spins around.

“What?”

“Why did you come here tonight?”

Mafuyu studies him before he answers. But his face is expressionless, just like back in high school. Uenoyama knows better, though. There are emotions brewing under the surface. He’s just trying to figure out a way to recall them.

“It was calling to me,” he says finally. “It felt like I had to go.”

Uenoyama chokes up a little bit. He wonders why. Why was it calling to him? Why did Mafuyu feel the need to show up to their old venue? Their old stomping ground?

“What about you?” he asks. “You came here tonight because you always come to the shows?”

Uenoyama is also quiet for a few moments. He doesn’t think he can tell the truth.

“I was looking for something.”

That’s all he gives and it’s all Mafuyu needs. He nods. He doesn’t ask for more.

“I hope you found it.”

Uenoyama swallows down hard.

“I hope I did, too.”

They both turn away after that and head in opposite directions. Uenoyama takes the train back to his place that night.

It’s the most he’s felt in years.

###  **song 2.**

Ah. The cold light of day. A slight headache because he can’t drink anymore without a hangover and a dry mouth because dehydration gets to him worse than it used to. Not that he was ever much of a drinker, it just doesn’t take a lot to get him buzzed. There’s only been one instance in Uenoyama’s life in which he woke up in the morning realizing he’d made a mistake the night before, but he doesn’t really remember what the mistake was. This morning, however, he remembers.

_ It was nice to see you again. _

The text shines in Uenoyama’s eyes as bright as Mafuyu’s real face does when he’s excited about something. That’s always been the one emotion he was able to express. When he thinks something is cool. When he’s impressed. He turns starry-eyed. Uenoyama misses that.

But that’s the problem.

It’s not a good idea to respond. At all. There are a lot of different Uenoyama’s paying rent inside his body and the realistic one says this is only going to end in heartbreak. He’s going to dredge up old feelings that he’s worked hard to get over and when it inevitably goes sour, he’ll have to get over them again. Panicked Uenoyama is saying  _ oh God, oh God, I shouldn’t have gotten his number, this is a bad idea;  _ logical Uenoyama says _ let it go, let the chapter end, don’t reread it.  _ Virgin Uenoyama pokes his head up to remind him he’s been wearing out his welcome lately but he pushes that one away. Virgin Uenoyama has no business being here at all anymore, but he persists.

But maybe…

It’s not that he should reply. It’s that it’s rude not to. He needs to tell Mafuyu to lose his number. Forget last night happened. Ignore the fact that everything felt so… Uenoyama can’t come up with a word for how last night felt, but it definitely  _ felt.  _ And maybe that’s enough. He  _ felt  _ again, something he never thought he would rediscover. But of course it  _ felt,  _ it was dramatic and romantic and exciting to see an old love. His  _ first  _ love. And to find out he’ll be here for a while now? Maybe permanently? Uenoyama shakes his head. He can’t do this. He shouldn’t do this.

_ Mafuyu.  _ _ Let’s pretend I think we Should  _ _ Maybe we shouldn’t do this. _

He should have said more but he couldn’t come up with anything. He doesn’t sound so certain and Mafuyu is steadfast. Sure enough:

_ We shouldn’t text? _

_ We shouldn’t speak at all _

Uenoyama’s phone rings. He snatches it up, but it’s only an employee. He asks where the classical CD stock is and Uenoyama has to stop and close his eyes, visualize the storeroom and tell him. They don’t sell a ton of CDs anymore but it’s the easiest way for bands to record and sell physical music still, so there’s a small section in the back of the store. When he hangs up, there’s still no response from Mafuyu and he’s actually disappointed. He didn’t think someone as persistent as Mafuyu would give up like that. But maybe he’s just busy. Maybe the text will come later.

It doesn’t. 

Uenoyama drinks some water, takes something for his headache and makes something to put in his empty stomach. He’s not hungover. He just doesn’t feel great after he drinks anymore. That’s part of being thirty, he supposes. Heartburn and headaches. And a bad back. His bones feel weak already from years of stress and he’s, hopefully, not even halfway through his life yet. But maybe it’s because he’s lonely. When he falls in love everything will magically fix itself.

That’s how that works. 

His place is pretty small. One bedroom, one bath, one room otherwise, a little space off the kitchen. He doesn’t need that much though because when he’s home he’s usually asleep or watching TV. He took the place because it doesn’t have any shared walls so if he wants to play guitar he can, even if it’s three in the morning. And there are some months where that’s the  _ only  _ time he’s playing guitar.

He hasn’t written music in years. The singer he’s playing with now writes his own stuff and he’s pretty good at it. He’s really quite talented, but Uenoyama doesn’t care much about it. He’ll play anything challenging enough - or catchy enough. And usually what the guy writes is pretty ear-popping. But usually Uenoyama just sits on his couch, feet up on the chair across from him and stares at the ceiling with his eyes closed, trying to pick out an old tune from UK bands he used to listen to back in the day. Muscle memory is a funny thing. 

Sometimes he finds himself playing an old given song and that’s when he stops for the night. Takes a shower, goes to bed, doesn’t think about it again.

He used to hate when people told him he looked like he was spacing out. Usually because he was thinking about something important and hated that other people could tell. But these days, when employees tell him he’s spacing out, he really is. There’s nothing in his brain. His head is empty. He’s just staring at the floor.

“I had a long night,” is his excuse. And the truth. He blinks once and tries to will the sleepiness away. They tell him he doesn’t need to be here right now, it’s a Thursday and not very busy but he just hired a new teacher and he wants to be around just in case she needs something. She seems to be doing pretty well though; her students have reported back to him with glowing reviews and she’s extremely friendly to everyone.

Maybe he should just go home. It’s lunchtime and no one’s around.

As he’s considering it, the door bell chimes. 

“Hello,” an employee says. Uenoyama isn’t sure which one.

“Hello.”

His head whips around when he hears Mafuyu’s voice. Surely he didn’t come  _ here.  _ How would he even know where  _ here  _ is?! Uenoyama mentioned running a music store but he didn’t say which one… not that there are a ton in the area, but there’s more than one in the city. Mafuyu either had to make a great guess or he’s been to more than one to find him. 

Uenoyama remembers once when they first met, he was looking for Mafuyu all day before practice but couldn’t find him anywhere. When he showed up to the studio, there he was, guitar plugged into the amp, Haruki next to him, excited to tell Uenoyama all about how much Mafuyu had learned. Uenoyama snapped. He didn’t know then that it was because he had  _ feelings  _ for him. 

He tells himself not to, but he snaps again.

“What are you doing here?!”

“Do you know hi-”

“How’d you know where I work?!” Uenoyama interrupts whoever it is that asks him about Mafuyu. Mafuyu doesn’t seem fazed at all.

“You told me.”

Uenoyama comes out from behind the counter. He looks around the store, realizing there’s only one space where they can be alone and he needs to yell. He needs to shout at Mafuyu because that’s what he does. 

No. That’s what he used to do. He’s a lot calmer now, but Mafuyu must bring it out.

“Come on,” he mutters, grabbing Mafuyu’s wrist and pulling him towards the empty practice room. There’s a drum set inside permanently but whoever left their guitar is going to have to wait until they’re done talking. They shouldn’t have left it in the first place. Uenoyama shuts the door and turns to Mafuyu with rage in his eyes. “What are you doing here?”

Mafuyu turns his head to the side. He still looks really young for his age. Definitely older than he used to, but still a lot like he did ten years ago. A decade doesn’t really do a lot, Uenoyama supposes, because he doesn’t look much different himself, but it would be really helpful if he did. It would be really nice if looking at Mafuyu didn’t instantly transport him back to high school, didn’t take him right back to the time he’s been trying to forget. He doesn’t want to chase it. He wants to move on.

“You have another partner?”

Uenoyama stops. He realizes his shoulders are tense so he relaxes them, unclenches his fists - not that he was ready to throw a punch or anything - and looks at Mafuyu with confusion.

“What?”

“Did you lie last night? Do you have a boyfriend?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Do you have a boyfriend?” Mafuyu repeats. “A husband? Some partner?”

“No,” Uenoyama says. “I wasn’t lying.”

“You don’t want a relationship?”

“What?”

“You don’t want to be in a relationship with anyone?”

Uenoyama suddenly understands. Mafuyu is asking why he doesn’t want this. Why he doesn’t want to talk. At all. He’s asking if there’s a reason that he’ll share. Uenoyama groans.

“That’s not really it, either,” he murmurs. 

“You think I’m ugly?”

“What?!”

Mafuyu lets out the  _ smallest  _ smile. Uenoyama fumes.

“You know,” he says. “This is exactly like high school. You wouldn’t take no for an answer then, either.”

The smile, as small as it was, disappears completely. Mafuyu’s eyes start to wander, they scan the room like they’re looking for something specific and he seems to find it. But he still doesn’t speak right away; he looks at the floor and gathers his thoughts. Uenoyama knows because he’s seen him do that a lot. Saw - he  _ used  _ to see him do that a lot. 

“I’ll leave you alone,” Mafuyu says quietly, “if you play guitar for me one last time.”

Uenoyama is taken completely off guard. He was  _ not  _ expecting that. 

“Huh?”

Mafuyu crosses the room to the guitar. He picks it up and strums it once. It’s pretty in tune and Mafuyu knows that; he remembers that much, at least. It’s kind of hard to forget. He comes back over and thrusts the guitar over.

“Play guitar for me one last time.”

Uenoyama’s eyes can’t stay trained on one spot. They feel heavy, sleepy almost, and he can’t believe what’s happening. At this time yesterday, he was standing in the same spot, sweeping up the floor for the next appointment, considering if he should go to the show last night or not. What would have happened if he had decided not to? And what does it mean that he did?

He takes the guitar and puts the strap over his head. He strums it too, then tunes it slightly. He’s kind of a perfectionist. But before he can play, he thinks. He feels like Mafuyu needs this. Mafuyu needs to feel like he did back then and Uenoyama does, too. If Mafuyu gets what he wants, Uenoyama should, too.

“I’ll play,” he says, “as long as you sing for me one last time, too.”

Mafuyu’s eyes go wide. He’s surprised. He didn’t think Uenoyama still cared. But Uenoyama can’t care about anything else. Maybe this will help. Maybe knowing this is the last time is what he needs - he never knew any of his lasts with Mafuyu were as final as they were because everything happened so suddenly. Their last kiss, their last walk, their last song. He didn’t realize it was last call back then. But maybe if he knows it now, he can move on. 

Mafuyu nods at him. 

“Okay,” he says. It feels like they both know implicitly what that means. They aren’t going to do this separately. This is a joint effort. Mafuyu’s going to sing what Uenoyama plays and even though they have several songs they’ve played together, they only really  _ have  _ one song. 

Uenoyama can’t look at him as they do it. He turns to the guitar and stares at the neck as he starts, strumming an intro to a song he hasn’t played in a long, long time. He still remembers it though, because muscle memory is a funny thing. He’s not supposed to look at the guitar as he plays, but he can’t bring himself to glance upwards. Instead, the second he hears Mafuyu’s intake breath, he shuts his eyes and keeps them closed as tight as he can.

Mafuyu’s voice brings something up Uenoyama’s throat. It might be his heart; he can’t be sure. It’s some sort of lump that makes his chest feel like erupting, like there’s a bird thrumming against its cage and its cage is Uenoyama’s ribs, threatening to collapse. It’s a feeling like he wants to cry, but can’t. It’s useless nostalgia. For a time he can’t go back to and a thing he can’t get over.

He’s not sure what Mafuyu must be thinking the whole time, but he imagines he’s feeling a lot. He always did. He was always scared he didn’t, but Uenoyama could always tell. He always knew Mafuyu was bursting at the seams, and not just because of Yuki. That may have been what jump started his insecurities - and fairly, as it should have, because it was a terrible trauma - but his dad was what planted the seed. All Uenoyama knows for sure is that he can’t  _ feel  _ what he used to even though he remembers it. He remembers how it all used to  _ feel,  _ and this isn’t it.

It’s over far too quickly for Uenoyama’s liking. Last call always is. 

“Okay,” Mafuyu says suddenly. Uenoyama’s eyes fly open. “I see now.”

It’s quiet. Uenoyama can finally look at him, just to stare, dazed, wondering if he’s going to continue. What does he see? What does Mafuyu’s taciturn brain think?

“What?” he asks. “You see what?”

Mafuyu looks sad. Well, he doesn’t really look anything but Uenoyama can still read those little tells. Slightly furrowed brow, slightly open mouth. He looks at the floor and Uenoyama knows. He’s sad.

“You lost your passion.”

Uenoyama feels like he should be angry, but he’s just confused first and foremost. Maybe once he gets through that, he’ll be mad, but he shakes his head, imploring him to continue.

“What?”

“You don’t play like you used to. You don’t want to. You don’t want to reconnect because it’ll remind you of when you did. When you had passion.”

There it is. The anger. Uenoyama wants to smash the guitar on the ground. Instead, he flips the strap up quickly and walks to the stand and slams it down. It makes that awful, awkward twangy sound that guitars do when they’re knocked, and Uenoyama feels a little bad, but only for the guitar.

“I play for myself now and that’s it,” he says, turning to Mafuyu with a scowl.

“That’s my point.”

“What?!”

“You used to play for yourself,” he says. “And then we made a band.  _ You  _ made a band and let me in it. Then you played for something bigger than yourself. That was when you found your spark again. You didn’t have it when we met, and then you found it.”

“So you think you’re my muse?”

“No,” he says. “But I can tell you don’t have one right now.”

Uenoyama scowls harder.

“I’ll prove it,” he says. He can’t find that old feeling, but that doesn’t mean Mafuyu can just waltz back into his life - into his music - and start throwing around accusations. It’s not a lack of passion. It’s a lack of knowledge. He doesn’t  _ know  _ what he needs to feel, just that once he feels it, it’ll be enough. He’ll know it once he feels it. “I can prove I still have passion for what I do.”

Mafuyu blinks.

“That would require you to talk to me again.”

“Fine!” Uenoyama shouts. He’s acutely aware that he’s been searching for a good reason to stay in touch, but he won’t acknowledge it yet. “We can talk! Whatever!”

Mafuyu looks away and rubs his arms. It’s like he used to when he missed Yuki. Uenoyama supposes he still does. He’ll never stop. Uenoyama understands that, but he did forget about those little  _ bits  _ of Mafuyu he didn’t get to see.

“I don’t want you to do that because you want to prove a point. I want you to  _ want  _ to talk to me again.”

Uenoyama’s face falls. He feels it. In fact, his entire body falls. Every muscle relaxes and he stares at Mafuyu. His heart is beating in his chest again, but now it’s so loud and hard that he thinks it’ll beat right through his skin and onto the floor. 

That isn’t what he meant. He didn’t mean he didn’t want to talk to him. He just…

“I’m sorry,” he says quietly. “Of course I want to talk to you again. I’m just… I’m worried that admitting that will sound larger than it is.”

Mafuyu smiles a bit and looks him in the eye. His hands fall back to his side.

“Don’t worry,” he says. “I’m not talking about dating. But…”

“What?”

“I missed you.”

Uenoyama’s throat closes up again.

“I missed you, too.”

So they decide to meet up the next week and go to another show. A battle of the bands at a different venue, but it’s still a show all the same. Uenoyama isn’t sure about sharing music with Mafuyu again but he’s also grateful for the idea because it means they’ll have something to do. They don’t just have to sit awkwardly over a coffee and try to come up with ways to beat around the bush. He doesn’t know what Mafuyu is really thinking - and usually, when he can speak, he speaks his mind so it’s not that hard to tell - but he knows he’s wondering. He’s wondering if he really isn’t talking about dating. He’s wondering if this really isn’t romantic. This isn’t a date. 

It isn’t a date.

It’s not. 

He doesn’t tell anyone. He doesn’t tell his parents or Yayoi or anyone at the shop, not that they would know who Mafuyu is. They hardly know the members of given, it was a bit before their time. They’re mostly younger, so Uenoyama has played his stuff for them but they don’t know any of the dirty secrets. And to be sure, he and Mafuyu  _ were  _ a secret when they started. At Haruki’s request. So it really is a secret.

But it’s not really all that dirty.

Mafuyu only texts him once before their meetup. It’s a picture of Kedama, and Uenoyama  _ doesn’t  _ say he’s shocked he’s still alive, but he does think it. It’s sweet, both in that Kedama is adorable and because Mafuyu used to do this when they were dating. He’d send a picture of his dog doing something impossibly cute and Uenoyama would always send an emoji back. Because he didn’t really know what to say, but he appreciated it every time.

This time he replies,  _ “Still cute after all this time.”  _ Mafuyu texts back,  _ “thanks.”  _ and Uenoyama hopes he realizes he meant Kedama.

He tries not to care about what to wear. He tries really hard to just treat the night as a friendly meetup. A simple night out to listen to some local bands play average music. Maybe there will be a gem or two in there. Usually these bands aren’t that bad, so it’s not a waste of time, but Uenoyama has never given it  _ this  _ much forethought. Still, he has to talk himself into sticking to a plain black t-shirt, because that’s what he would wear if he were going with Yayoi or someone else. Don’t put on something nicer. You’ll look stupid. You’ll be overdressed. Just go with the black t-shirt as always.

Mafuyu is wearing a hoodie and ripped jeans which takes him off guard. He looks  _ fashionable  _ but like he didn’t try to be, and Uenoyama tries not to think about it too much.

Uenoyama offers to get him a drink and is grateful that he accepts with no argument. He didn’t want to have the, “This is just a friend thing,” conversation because he’s nervous he’ll get heartbroken already. But it is just a friend thing, Mafuyu needs some human connection right now. Uenoyama can tell. He looks exhausted.

“Are you okay?”

“Hm?”

“You seem tired.”

“Oh,” Mafuyu says, looking down at his drink as they wait for the first band. “I’m fine.”

“Are you sure?”

He nods.

“Yep.”

“How’s everything at home?” Mafuyu winces. Uenoyama figures that’s it, he’s been up with his mom lately, and he doesn’t know exactly what’s wrong with her, but he doesn’t want to make Mafuyu relive it. “Actually, don’t answer that.”

“Huh?”

“Not because I don’t care,” Uenoyama clarifies quickly. “You just need a second away from it. Tonight is about music.”

To his surprise, Mafuyu actually smiles. Not a huge grin, but it’s definitely a visible smile.

“Sure,” he agrees with a nod. “Just music.”

Uenoyama smiles a little too, but turns toward the stage so Mafuyu can’t see that his  _ is  _ a big, stupid fucking grin.

The first band is pretty good, but Uenoyama explains that these competitions always have a hype man first. They’re usually paid under the table to open so that people stick around, thinking the rest will be as good. Mafuyu goes starry-eyed and compliments his knowledge, which makes Uenoyama flush.

The second band is good, too. Uenoyama tells him that’s not surprising either, but they were  _ particularly  _ good.  _ “Not as good as we were,”  _ Mafuyu says, which makes Uenoyama ache for a moment before the next band starts.

They’re pretty terrible.

So are the four, fifth and sixth bands.

“It’s like they’re not even trying,” Uenoyama mutters. Mafuyu laughs a little.

“Well, they’re young,” he says. 

“We were young.”

“But you were a prodigy.”

Uenoyama perks up.

“ _ You  _ were a prodigy.”

Mafuyu looks away. That’s when Uenoyama sees it for the first time: Mafuyu is looking for something, too. He’s glad to be here because he’s chasing a feeling that he can’t get back either, just like Uenoyama. But Uenoyama gets the feeling that they’re not after the same thing. 

That makes him ache, too.

“When do you become… not a prodigy anymore?” he asks. “At what age do you just become average?”

Uenoyama is a little shaken. He thinks hard about the words and when he really understands what Mafuyu is asking, he gives a little shrug. It’s a good question. 

“I guess at some point you become the new average.”

“Oh-h,” Mafuyu coos. “Uenoyama-kun is so profound.”

“Shut up,” he says under his breath, scowling at his ex-boyfriend. Because that’s what he is. He’s Uenoyama’s ex. Uenoyama is sitting here with his ex-boyfriend, talking about music and drinking alcohol. He thinks he used to fantasize about this in college: being with Mafuyu still at age thirty, enjoying a drink legally and still being into music. He did not expect to get it - especially the way he actually has it right now.

The last band starts a few minutes later - and Uenoyama is entranced. Four members - a bassist with long hair, a drummer with a lip piercing. Mafuyu doesn’t mention it, but Uenoyama knows he’s noticed it, too. The singer sounds downright magical, but he lets go of his guitar halfway through a song to grab the microphone and it turns out he wasn’t really playing much to begin with. The lead guitarist really had the riff under control himself. And it was a sick riff, too. They play three songs but it’s the one in the middle that really stands out. It’s the kind of melody that will get stuck in Uenoyama’s head. It’s going to stick with him. He checks the board on the side of the stage. What’s this band called?

He can’t even read it. The somethings. He looks over to Mafuyu to ask what it says, but he stops in his tracks when he sees how stunned he seems. He doesn’t seem to realize anything around him is happening. The third song is clearly wrapping up and Mafuyu is so stuck in it that Uenoyama wonders if he’ll ever come out. 

He’s looking for something. Uenoyama wishes he knew what it was.

“They were good,” Uenoyama finally says, several seconds after the song ends. Mafuyu is still clapping. “They were the best by far.”

Mafuyu nods at him.

“They should win.”

“Well, what were they called?” Uenoyama asks. “We can vote for them.”

“We can vote?”

“Popular vote,” he says. “Judges adjudicate based on critical musical theory, but the audience gets to vote on their presence.”

“Oh-h,” Mafuyu coos again. “Uenoya-”

“Just tell me their name!” Uenoyama shouts. Mafuyu turns to the board and squints.

“The Stories.”

“Ha,” Uenoyama laughs derisively. “If they want to make it big, they’ll have to change that.”

“Why?”

“SEO,” he says. “That’s a name that won’t function well in search results.”

Mafuyu wants to say it again -  _ oh-h, Uenoyama-kun -  _ but Uenoyama glares at him so he just smiles instead.

They grab a ballot and circle The Stories, hand it in, and sit back down to finish their drinks. Uenoyama doesn’t want to speak first. He wants Mafuyu to lead the conversation. He was always like this. He didn’t want to speak over Mafuyu or discourage him when he finally did open his mouth. Sometimes he did anyway because he was young and dumb, but he’s older now. He’s not immature. He can hold a real conversation without getting annoyed or angry or jealous.

“The guitarist,” Mafuyu finally says. Uenoyama looks at him. “He reminded me. Of…”

Uenoyama’s heart jumps into his throat. He’s so sure Mafuyu is going to embarrass him again.

“Of who?”

“Yuki.”

Oh.

_ Oh. _

That’s why he was enchanted. That’s why he got caught up in them. 

Maybe Uenoyama  _ can’t  _ have a real conversation without getting jealous.

“Why?” he asks. 

“The way he carried himself,” Mafuyu says. “The way he held his guitar.”

“He held it like anyone else does.”

“No,” Mafuyu says. “At the end. He pulled it upwards. Like a hug.”

Oh. 

Uenoyama doesn’t know what to say. Yuki  _ always  _ inspired jealousy in him, even on the day they broke up. But even as a kid, he sure respected him. And as an adult, even more so. Uenoyama doesn’t speak ill of the dead for the most part, and Yuki isn’t one of the exceptions. Even though he never knew him. But they had a lot in common - mostly that they both fell in love with Mafuyu. If Yuki realized how special Mafuyu was, who was Uenoyama to criticize? In fact, he thinks Yuki was a pretty smart kid.

“Is that still…?”

Mafuyu looks Uenoyama in the eyes.

“Still what?”

“I was going to ask if it’s still hard but of course it is,” he says. “I guess my question is… has it gotten easier?”

Mafuyu looks as if he’s really about to cry.

“Yes,” he chokes. 

“Then why are you so sad?”

“Because I don’t want it to be.”

They’d talked about this a few times. Mafuyu was always terrified of the day that would come eventually that he wouldn’t think of Yuki - not even once. Not a single thought. Twenty-four hours would pass without a memory of him, and the worst part to Mafuyu was that he knew it was unavoidable. A day would come that it would be easier. And he didn’t want that.

“I’m sorry.”

Mafuyu puts his hand out on the table. Uenoyama has to take it. 

“This was fun,” he says suddenly. “I had a good time. Even if the good band doesn’t win.”

Uenoyama laughs a little. 

“I had a good time, too.”

“I would have enjoyed this with anyone,” Mafuyu tells him. “But it was especially nice that it was with you.”

Uenoyama prays that Mafuyu doesn’t feel how sweaty his palm gets. Just like a damn teenager all over again. He remembers the day in the studio before they were dating that Mafuyu fell asleep on his shoulder. That’s how he feels right now. That same kind of panic. The rush of desire. The electricity that sparks when he touches Mafuyu.

“I’m glad I was with you, too.”

“Let’s do it again.”

“When?”

“When’s the next one?”

“There are shows all the time,” he says. “But the next competition won’t be for a while.”

“Let’s go to a show then,” Mafuyu says. “This weekend.”

“Okay. I’ll see who’s playing where. Maybe I know someone.”

The lights flicker for last call. Mafuyu frowns.

“They didn’t even announce the winner yet.”

“Yeah,” Uenoyama smiles. “That’s half the charm of these things. No matter how many they put on, they’re never well organized.” He downs the rest of his beer. “There’s time, though. We’ve got about half an hour bef-”

But he’s interrupted by mic static and an awful reverb. Someone apologizes profusely for the noise and then announces the winners: third and second place - some of the worse bands. That’s how Uenoyama knows the first two were paid, because realistically, they should have won. But first place goes to The Stories. They win a pretty sizable sum of money and they say what every band says - they’ll spend it on recording their first album.

Given never made a first real album, but Uenoyama sometimes wonders about it. He thinks about what it would have been called. They made CDs and demos, but never a full studio album of their original songs. He thinks about what he’d call one if he made his own now. Maybe he’d name it after something he loves. Something he has a passion for. 

He’d just have to figure out what he has a passion for.

###  **song 3.**

The singer Uenoyama plays for is so animated when he talks that it’s hard to interrupt him, even when Uenoyama really has to leave. He cuts in a few times but his friend continues, rambling about a girl he’s met. He’s freaking out because he wants a girlfriend but he doesn’t want to settle down. He’s got a band to put together. He’s got a dream to live out. He wants to tour, wants to record, wants a label and a manager. All Uenoyama wants is to not be late meeting Mafuyu.

“Sorry!” 

He has to apologize profusely while out of breath. Mafuyu doesn’t even seem to notice he’s fifteen minutes past their meetup time. They go inside the jazz bar, to which Mafuyu is a stranger. Uenoyama had been for a while too until he met a rhythm guitarist when he was twenty-five who introduced him to them. He appreciates jazz a lot more now, but he’s also found that small bars with live, quiet bands are the perfect place to go with someone he wants to talk to.

And he wants to talk to Mafuyu.

“So you’re single?”

Though he wasn’t expecting to talk to him about  _ that. _

“Y-yeah.”

“Me too.”

Uenoyama isn’t sure how to respond to that. He knows. They already had a conversation about it. 

“I know.”

“How long have you been single?”

“What?”

“How long have you been single?”

Uenoyama tries to put his finger on it: Mafuyu has changed, but he’s not  _ different _ . It’s that he’s himself - amplified. Straightforward. Persistent. He’s learned how to speak. So now he does.

“A couple years now,” Uenoyama finally says with a large sigh. “It’s not for any specific reason. I just haven’t met anyone.”

“Mm.”

“What about you?”

“Huh?”

“How long have you been single?”

“A while,” he says. “I met someone at my first job. We dated for two years and got pretty serious before he cheated.”

“Oh,” Uenoyama frowns. “I’m sorry.”

“Was your last relationship serious?”

“No,” Uenoyama says. “Not really. None of them were.”

“How many have you had?”

“Since - us?”

“Yeah.”

“Three,” he tells him. “None of them serious.” He pauses. “You only seem to get into serious ones though, huh?”

“I do?”

“You’ve been in three relationships,” he shrugs. “Not to speak for the others, but you and I felt pretty serious. For the time.”

“We did?”

“You don’t think so?” 

“I do,” Mafuyu nods. “I was serious. You were too. That was sort of the problem.”

“Yeah,” Uenoyama says, frowning as he looks up at the band. He’s trying not to let the emotions show but he’s never had a poker face, at least not when the emotions are discomfort and confusion. “Seems like you just… commit.”

“Maybe,” Mafuyu hums. He looks up at the band, too. “I guess I don’t see the point of being in a relationship if you aren’t going to  _ be  _ in it.”

Uenoyama shrugs again. He was present. He was  _ in  _ them. He wouldn’t have minded if they’d gone the distance. But then he wouldn’t be single at this moment. He wouldn’t have been single when he found Mafuyu again - not that it matters. This isn’t a romantic date. Mafuyu is back home to take care of his mother. He needs a friend. He needs someone. Uenoyama would be sick to his stomach knowing Mafuyu was handling something like that alone.

Of course, he didn’t seem to mind being alone back then.

“Why did you just disappear?”

Mafuyu turns to him in surprise.

“What?”

“You disappeared,” Uenoyama says. His voice cracks the tiniest bit. “One day you were there and the next, I couldn’t find you on anything. Nowhere online. I didn’t have a number. You just… left me.” He coughs. “You just left. You left.”

Mafuyu gives the smallest sigh. He looks at the table and frowns.

“You know,” he says, “you were always so respectful, even back in high school. About Yuki.”

Uenoyama nearly chokes even though he’s not drinking anything. He’s not sure why  _ that’s  _ getting brought up.

“What?”

“It was shocking for you at first, I know,” he says. “But once you got over that, you were pretty mature about it. Well, you were as mature as a high schooler could be, at least. And the shock was normal, too. Not to mention being insecure at seventeen anyway. I don’t know. I just - I’ve never forgotten how important you were to me because of that.”

“That’s the reason I was important to you?” he asks. Mafuyu looks at him, furrowing his brow. “Because I respected your ex?”

“My ex died,” he says simply. “He wasn’t just some ex who dumped me. He was dead.”

Uenoyama has to look away. He supposes that’s fair - Mafuyu wasn’t getting over someone who he broke up with. 

“They called me your rebound,” he murmurs. Mafuyu moves out of the corner of his eye, but he doesn’t know what he’s doing because he refuses to look at him. He’s still staring straight ahead, right at the cellist. He looks like - Akihiko.

“I know.”

“It wasn’t easy.”

“I know.”

“Hiiragi and Shizusumi - they were fine once we started playing together but I could tell they thought so, too.”

“They didn’t.”

“They did.”

“If they did, it was because they were also kids getting over the death of a friend. We were all best friends since childhood. It was hard for them, too.”

“No one ever considered how hard it was for me,” Uenoyama says. “I was just the dumb kid who came in and expected you to like me.”

“I did like you,” Mafuyu says. “You don’t rebound from death.”

Mafuyu almost spits it out like he’s angry, and Uenoyama finally turns to look at him. He’s a little shocked to hear him speak with such venom - and even then it’s the tiniest amount - but he certainly has heard Mafuyu yell before. It’s rare, but it’s terrifying. 

“I know you don’t.”

“You weren’t a rebound,” he says. “When we met, you were so cool and… aloof. But you fixed Yuki’s guitar for me. You didn’t know who he was then but still, I broke something, and you fixed it, no questions asked. That’s how you always were.” He shifts from anger to determination. “You don’t just get over someone when they die. When they dump you, you do. You’re supposed to. But I’ll never be over Yuki. I’m still not over Yuki. It was a trauma. You helped me through it. That’s not a rebound - you weren’t a rebound.”

Uenoyama swallows down hard, though his throat is so dry that it’s difficult. He doesn’t know what to say. Luckily, Mafuyu has a bit more to go, as he sits back in his seat and sulks:

“People don’t understand how death works. It’s not the same.”

“I… know.”

“And it ruined the band,” he says. “Do you know how bad I felt about that?”

“Huh?”

“It was my fault,” he says. 

“No it wasn’t, it was Haruki an-”

“It was my fault that we stopped making music together,” he interrupts. “We stopped talking for a bit, then we started again, and I realized… you weren’t playing at all anymore. Not like you had been. I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Blaming myself.”

So that’s the answer. That’s why Mafuyu disappeared. He was trying to close a chapter of his life, too. Uenoyama was just a bystander. A casualty.

“Is that why you left?” He has to make sure. “That’s why you just moved and never looked back?”

He shifts in his seat but looks miserable.

“Yeah,” he says finally. “I couldn’t move on. I thought if I left the old stuff behind I could do it.”

“And did it help?”

He doesn’t answer. At all. It looks like he wants to - he’s trying to come up with  _ something -  _ but he can’t. He just stares helplessly at the band and Uenoyama sits back in his seat. That’s fine. He understands. He doesn’t really need an answer. In fact, it’s answer enough.

It didn’t help. Mafuyu is stuck, just like he is.

Against his better judgment, Uenoyama hesitantly puts his hand onto the table. His eyes are fixed ahead of him. He moves towards the center, fingers drumming on the surface, keeping beat with the music and when he can tell out of the corner of his eye that Mafuyu is looking at it, he turns it over, opens it up, his palm inviting Mafuyu in. His heart is racing, ready for the rejection. But he’s not proposing anything. He’s just trying to comfort. He’s trying to tell Mafuyu that it’s okay. He understands.

Mafuyu takes it. Uenoyama wraps his fingers around Mafuyu’s hand and they don’t say another word. Even when he gets hot, God himself couldn’t pry Uenoyama’s hand away from his ex-bandmate. That’s what he is. He was a boyfriend - Uenoyama’s first. But he was more than that. They made music together. They created together. They brought things into the world together. There’s something far more romantic about that than - romance.

“I should go,” Mafuyu says as they’re standing by the door. “My mom needs me.”

Uenoyama nods.

“Do you - want to do this again?”

“Yeah,” Mafuyu says immediately. “I’m free three days from now.”

“Okay,” Uenoyama says. “I’ll find another show to go to.”

“Okay,” Mafuyu smiles. “Sounds good.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

Uenoyama looks at the door like a moron. He just stares for a few moments before slamming his hand against it and opening it far more violently than he means to. He’s a little embarrassed but Mafuyu doesn’t seem to care. They get outside and the air is so cold that Uenoyama wishes he’d brought a better coat. Or worn something other than a t-shirt.

“Okay.”

He doesn’t know why he says it again. Mafuyu raises his eyebrows as they shuffle off to the side of the door to say goodbye. 

“Okay,” Mafuyu repeats. “Bye, Uenoyama-kun.”

He says that to make fun of him, to get a rise out of him and remind him of their high school days. But it makes Uenoyama melt to remember.

“Okay.”

Mafuyu doesn’t move. He simply stands and stares so intently that Uenoyama feels his face flush. He has to turn to stare at the ground and after a few moments, Mafuyu grabs his hand. He squeezes it. When Uenoyama finally looks at him, he smiles and then lets go. He turns around and heads home.

He was waiting for Uenoyama to make a move.

Back in high school, he wouldn’t have understood that. He wouldn’t have realized Mafuyu was more worldly than he was - well, that’s not true; in fact, he was constantly insecure  _ because  _ he knew Mafuyu had more experience. But he wouldn’t realize that Mafuyu was used to more. He didn’t  _ expect  _ it. He just knew how to do it. He knew how to kiss Yuki goodbye, how to hold his hand on dates. He knew how to have sex. He knew how to be physically intimate, and Uenoyama simply  _ didn’t.  _ He just never really thought about it much until Mafuyu. And that was probably because he figured he was supposed to be having those thoughts about girls. Once he realized he didn’t, he was a bit more in tune with himself.

Of course, he grew into it. Sex wasn’t difficult in the following relationships - it wasn’t difficult with Mafuyu either, once he got used to it. But he hasn’t done that in a while. Made a move. He hasn’t kissed anyone in so long that he worries he’s forgotten how because he’s obviously forgotten to even do it in the first place.

He slaps his hand over his eyes in embarrassment. Mafuyu is already gone and he’s still standing at the door like a huge lump of awkward nerves and terrified energy. 

Mafuyu wanted to kiss, but he wasn’t going to pressure Uenoyama. Just like in high school.

His apartment feels especially small when he gets back that night. His guitar sits in the corner, untouched the past couple of weeks. He’s played the ones at the shop but he hasn’t played his own in a while. He’s afraid to. He can pick up a guitar when his bandmate is around and play what’s asked of him. That’s easy. But what will he play when he’s alone? He’s terrified to find out. He’s too scared to do it alone. He’s worried he’ll think, like Mafuyu often does, about a certain winter. 

He groans to himself and leans against the front door. This is - he doesn’t know what this is. It’s awful, but also exciting. He hasn’t  _ felt  _ like this in so long and he  _ knows  _ he’s been trying to put this part of him to rest - he’s been trying to close this chapter for a long time and Mafuyu isn’t helping. In fact, he’s opening it back up and bending the spine backwards. It’s the opposite of what Uenoyama thinks he needs.

But he wants it.

“Hello?”

Mafuyu’s voice is soft on the other end. He’s trying to keep quiet so his mom can sleep, Uenoyama can just tell. He did that back in college, too.

“Meet me at the beach.”

“What?”

“The beach!” Uenoyama’s voice is decidedly  _ not  _ soft. “Sorry. Please?”

“Right now?”

“Yes.”

There’s a short silence on the other end.

“Okay,” he says. “Which one?”

“Ours,” Uenoyama says without thinking. “Um, the one -”

“Okay,” Mafuyu says. “I’ll leave now.”

“Okay.”

Mafuyu hangs up before Uenoyama can start another round of okays. Thank God. Uenoyama doesn’t really know what’s gotten into him but he remembers feeling alive back in high school. During given, he felt so electric he could have set the city on fire. Mafuyu was such a  _ part  _ of that. He was a part of that chapter. And if he’s going to help reopen that, then Uenoyama isn’t going to resist it. Not anymore. 

There’s something about how Mafuyu looks at the beach at night that makes Uenoyama tear up. They aren’t sad tears, just confused ones - tears that question why his life is like this, why he feels this way, why he can’t figure it out. Why can’t he get over it? Why could he  _ never  _ get over it? Mafuyu just stands there, staring out at the waves as Uenoyama approaches. He must hear him, because he turns around just in time to ask:

“Why did you pick the beach?” He’s smiling like this is going to be a conversation. Uenoyama knows it isn’t. “You want to be friends but this was the most romantic spot we had-”

Uenoyama closes the gap more than Mafuyu is expecting. The last thing Uenoyama sees before he closes his eyes into the kiss is Mafuyu’s own eyes go wide in surprise and shock and something else - something like electricity. Mafuyu still feels like he did ten years ago. Physically, but also - he makes Uenoyama  _ feel  _ like he did ten years ago. Soft lips, delicate fingertips pressed against Uenoyama’s hips, a little, surprised moan coming from the back of his throat. But more than that, he feels  _ electric. _

Uenoyama leans into him so hard that they nearly topple over. He has to reach around Mafuyu’s waist to grab the railing but he doesn’t pull away too quickly. He makes sure that if this is the last time he’ll ever kiss Mafuyu, he’ll remember it. Commit it to memory. He didn’t know back then that one kiss was going to be their last. But now it doesn’t have to be - now Uenoyama has at least one more to remember him by.

When he does finally pull away, he stares at Mafuyu. He just stares into his eyes and he knows he probably looks more intense than romantic, but Mafuyu doesn’t seem to mind. It’s like he knows him so well already - because he does. They’re still just kids.

“Uenoyama-kun.”

Uenoyama licks his lips.

“What?”

“I love you.”

…

All that floats in his mind is the same thing that happened last time Mafuyu confessed to him at the beach:

IT’S MUTUAL.

They’re still just kids, Uenoyama especially so.

He runs away. When he accepts it, that this feeling is love - a love he never really got to let go of even though he thought he could - he turns on his heel, backs off, and runs all the way back home.

###  **song 4.**

This isn’t a gay panic. Well, Uenoyama is gay and panicking, but he’s not panicking  _ because  _ he’s gay. His gay panic was in high school and even then, it didn’t last too long and it was more that he was having feelings at all, not  _ who  _ they were for. Well, he panicked a  _ bit  _ about who they were for, but that was less because Mafuyu was a guy and more because he was the singer in his band and he knew it couldn’t work out and it would hurt the band which was a laugh considering it was Haruki who told them not to let anyone know but ended up breaking up the band himself when he and Akihiko broke up and -

Anyway, the point is that this isn’t a  _ gay panic.  _ Uenoyama is just a gay panicking.

He paced his apartment for about an hour last night, from the front door to the window in the living room, to the bedroom, back to his kitchen and then to the front door again. He wore himself out and fell asleep but woke up in just a few hours and started pacing again. He’s thinking. He’s thinking about his next move. The ball is in his court and instead of saying,  _ “Yeah, sure Mafuyu, I’d love to play basketball with you,”  _ he just took it and ran home. He didn’t even say it back. He didn’t say it but he thought it and he hopes Mafuyu knows it. He hopes Mafuyu knows he loves him.

He has to figure out how to remedy this but he won’t get any clarity here. He makes sure he looks decent and heads to the shop. But he’s halfway out the door before he realizes he wants to bring his  _ own  _ guitar today and heads back. He picks it up, lifts it in the air and inspects it.

He’s had several guitars over the years. He started playing a Gibson recently but the Fender is so classic and he couldn’t possibly give up the guitar he learned to play on. So it’s been sitting here for years, played rarely, tuned never. He holds it sideways and strums, then cringes at the discordance. He packs it up in the bag; he’ll tune it later.

The shop only opened about an hour before he gets there. It’s pretty dead so he has to make conversation with employees, which is usually fine, but today he’s so embarrassed and distracted that it’s hard to keep up with them so when he has a second to disappear, he does. He goes into the back, checks the stock and then sits between the shelves of guitar bags and puts his head in his hands. 

He just ran away. Just up and ran. Mafuyu said he loves him and Uenoyama ran away. It’s all he can think about for  _ hours.  _ For two and a half hours he sits there, hidden away from everyone, sometimes checking his phone for texts, then using social media to distract himself from how stupid he feels, until he remembers and stares at the floor for ten minutes straight again. He’s so stupid. So fucking stupid. It’s lunchtime before someone finally finds him and tells him that guy is back.

“What guy?”

“The one who came b-”

“Oh,” Uenoyama breathes. “No. I know who. Thanks.”

Mafuyu doesn’t look angry. But he doesn’t usually, even when he is. Uenoyama isn’t sure why he didn’t just call him if he wanted to yell, and hopes he doesn’t actually do that right here in front of everyone. That doesn’t sound like Mafuyu though, so he’s not actually that worried.

“Why didn’t you just text?” he asks, humiliated. “Do we have to have this conversation in person?”

Mafuyu’s face actually falls, which Uenoyama wasn’t expecting. It’s like Mafuyu thought he was going to say something else but, of course, he said the wrong thing, as always.

“Do you not want to see me?”

“No,” Uenoyama says quickly. “That’s not it.”

“Why does it matter if I text, then?”

“Because I look like an idiot and can’t look you in the eyes.”

“Yeah, but every minute you don’t answer, you look dumber.”

When Uenoyama does finally look at him, Mafuyu is smiling slightly. 

“I kissed you,” he says quietly. “I’m the one who initiated. And then I ran away.”

“Can’t say it was out of character.”

“Hey.”

“I wasn’t surprised is all I’m saying.”

“Well, I’ve always been sort of nervous about stuff like that.”

“I know.”

“Hey.”

Uenoyama points at the rehearsal room. Mafuyu nods and Uenoyama grabs the key to unlock it. He doesn’t want people to hear this conversation. It’s way too embarrassing. He ushers Mafuyu in and just before he closes the door, he sees a coworker staring at him in confusion. He glares back and she raises her eyebrows, looks away and tries to stifle a laugh. Ugh. She knows. She knows that Mafuyu is a romantic interest. She doesn’t know he’s the singer on that track she likes so much, though. The one who broke his heart.

“I know you said something important,” Uenoyama begins. “And I didn’t really react the w-”

“I came here to say something more important.”

Uenoyama blinks. More important? More important than  _ I love you? _

“O - okay…”

Mafuyu turns and squares his shoulders across from him. He’s wearing a button up with a tie and nice slacks, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows. Uenoyama just wears t-shirts and jeans to work so he’s feeling a little underwhelming in all ways right now.

“I think you need to find a band.”

Uenoyama blinks again.

“What?”

“You need to find a real band,” Mafuyu insists. “Not just a singer you’re playing for. I’ve been getting to know you again and… you need a real band to play in. To make music in again.”

Uenoyama looks down at the ground and kicks his foot a little. He doesn’t want to say it. But there is one other reason he never got into another band, besides how much it hurt that none of them were given:

“No one’s ever been as impressive a singer as you.”

His eyes are still trained on his own shoes. Mafuyu’s shoulders seem to fall a bit and he turns away slightly. He’s thinking about something. He sighs and shakes his head.

“No.”

“No?”

“We can’t be in a band together again,” he says. “I gave up music.”

Something about that angers Uenoyama - not only because he wasn’t asking that in the first place, but because -

“Then why can’t I? You’re the only one who can move on?”

“That’s not it.”

“What is it, then?”

“Music was your passion,” he says. “You keep losing it. But you rediscovered it once. Why can’t you again?”

“I told you, I rediscovered it before because of  _ you,”  _ he tells him. “Maybe my passion has changed.”

Mafuyu cocks his head slightly. Uenoyama wonders if he truly picks up on what he’s saying, just in case he doesn’t, he decides to spell it out:

“I love you, too.”

Mafuyu looks like he might cry. That’s what Uenoyama thinks, at least. It’s hard to tell with him. His expressions have become more - expressive. When Uenoyama thinks back to high school, it  _ does  _ feel so far away. There are a lot of things he did and said and felt back then that he doesn’t do or say or feel anymore. The same could be true of Mafuyu. He probably doesn’t even remember the days he couldn’t express himself.

Or maybe he just got better at faking it.

“If you commit to anything,” he says, “I think it should be to music.”

That’s not what Uenoyama was expecting in all honesty. He can’t believe it in a way, that Mafuyu would confess his love and then tell him to pursue something else. But it’s also exactly what he’d do. Put the music first. Put Uenoyama’s passion before his own.

“I’ll think about it,” Uenoyama says, taking a step forward. “I’ll talk to the singer. Is that what you want?”

“I want you to want it,” Mafuyu tells him, also stepping toward him. He reaches out and grabs Uenoyama’s hand. “But I think if you go back to it, you’ll realize that you do.”

Uenoyama smiles when they touch and doesn’t even mind that there’s a window into the room. No one can really see in unless they’re trying to, and Uenoyama doesn’t see anyone at the door right now. 

“Do you want to come over tonight?” he asks quietly. Mafuyu is pressed against his chest now. He tilts his head up slightly; Uenoyama isn’t that much taller than him.

“Sure,” he says. “What time?”

“Whenever you can. Maybe for dinner.”

Mafuyu nods.

“I can do that.”

Uenoyama’s eyes travel back to the floor again. He doesn’t want to kiss again. Well, he  _ does,  _ but he thinks they shouldn’t yet. So he lets go and gives Mafuyu a hug instead. He knows it’s lame, but Mafuyu does hug back.

“I’ll see you tonight.”

###  **song 5.**

Uenoyama always had this weird  _ thing.  _ This feeling. He’s always thought like he was better off alone, not because of anything self-deprecating or hateful, but because he’d never felt right with someone else. He always thought that  _ being  _ with someone - loving them, intimately, deeply, romantic or not - would make him  _ feel  _ something special. He always thought it would give him purpose. And he felt a lot more purposeful on his own. He had no one to answer to. He could pick up and leave if he wanted; he could travel the world, make music again, create something bigger than himself like he did back in high school.

He never felt with anyone else the way he felt with Mafuyu.

Of course, he never  _ created  _ anything with any of his other partners. Those relationships were just going through the motions expected of him. They were cute guys, nice guys, loving guys who made Uenoyama feel good, but they didn’t make him feel  _ right.  _ He was always just waiting around until they broke up. Because the idea of battling the world with them was almost  _ embarrassing.  _ The idea that  _ this  _ was his partner that he was supposed to share his deepest feelings with - he couldn’t do it. He always came off as pretty boring, he thought, because he never really spoke his mind. It’s not exactly fair, seeing as high school is full of nervous energy and unbridled emotion, but he never felt that same rawness as he did with Mafuyu. 

With Mafuyu, it was like he wasn’t afraid of feeling something. With the other guys, it was just another lesson in repression.

Mafuyu smiles. He laughs. Uenoyama dropped by the grocery store on the way home to get the stuff to make a pizza together. And when Mafuyu shows up, he smiles. He’s wearing a sweatshirt and it drives home how much he’s grown since high school. He still looks young for his age, but he’s older than Uenoyama remembers him. 

And he laughs.

It feels like it was rare that Uenoyama would see him laugh, but he knows it wasn’t. He knows he saw him happy all the time when they were back in high school and college. Even after they broke up, while they were trying to make the band work still, Mafuyu still smiled. Genuinely, too. Uenoyama knows because the fact that Mafuyu  _ could  _ smile so brilliantly killed him. He wasn’t able to return it. He couldn’t smile once they broke up. It was a good idea to end the band. It hurts to this day, but it was necessary.

“You know, for how the same you are, you’re a lot different.”

The smile on Mafuyu’s face doesn’t falter. He’s amused that Uenoyama sucks so bad at cooking. He defends himself by arguing that he mostly just had frozen stuff growing up. His microwave is small, so they’re doing smaller pies, but he still remembers what toppings Mafuyu likes and hopes his tastes haven’t changed.

“What do you mean?” he asks, dropping the sprinkles of cheese on his pizza. 

“You talk a lot more,” Uenoyama says. He looks up at the ceiling. “I don’t know if I like it.”

He’s joking. It’s obvious that he’s joking. And Mafuyu doesn’t even stop smiling. In fact, he laughs. But his response sends Uenoyama scrambling:

“Well, I found my voice.”

His dad. He confessed one night to Uenoyama just how bad he was, how he’d hit him if he spoke out of turn. It was easier as a child to just shut up. Uenoyama doesn’t remember all the details, but he knows Yuki played a big part in comforting him after his dad was arrested, and Uenoyama didn’t know how to compete with that. His dad was why he couldn’t express himself and even joking that he didn’t like to hear Mafuyu talk was shitty. He feels terrible.

“Sorry,” is all he can say. Mafuyu’s smile falters a bit, but not much.

“What?” he asks. “Why?”

“I didn’t mean to imply…”

“Imply what?”

“It was a bad joke,” Uenoyama murmurs, turning away angrily. “Sorry, I-”

“Hey.”

Mafuyu’s voice is so soft when he reaches out, touches Uenoyama’s wrist. He pulls him back and makes him face him, but Uenoyama’s eyes are cast downwards.

“What did you think you implied?”

“I’m glad you found your voice,” he says. “Because I know there was a good reason you didn’t want to use it before.”

Mafuyu’s head cocks slowly and his eyes are overcome with grief as it dawns on him. Ah, yes. His dad. Now Uenoyama has brought up his dad, which is probably the worst thing to do.

“I didn’t think that.”

And now he’s reassuring him, when it should be the other way around.

“I just want you to know that it means a lot to me that I mean a lot to you.”

Now Mafuyu’s eyebrows furrow and Uenoyama doesn’t blame him. He sort of blurted it out, the odd little phrase. He hadn’t thought it through. It was as raw as he gets.

“What?”

“You said it meant a lot to you that I was mature about Yuki back in high school,” he says. “I don’t want to be immature now. I didn’t mean to imply anything about… your dad or how you felt about Yuki. I never want to be someone who makes your life harder.”

His eyebrows slant sadly.

“I know that.”

“It means a lot to me when you acknowledge it.”

“I’ll acknowledge it more often, then.”

“No,” Uenoyama stutters. “I didn’t mean-”

“I know,” Mafuyu nods. “I’m still going to.”

It grows silent. Mafuyu’s still holding onto Uenoyama’s wrist and their pizzas are sitting on the counter, ready to be cooked. He looks over at them and when Mafuyu sees his eyes travel to the counter, he lets go of his hand and the electricity fizzles out. Fuck. The moment passed. It went right by him and he didn’t take it. And now Mafuyu is turning to the pizza too, so he can’t even kiss him late because he isn’t facing him and - 

Fuck.

“Let’s heat them up.”

“Huh?”

Mafuyu looks at Uenoyama again.

“The pizzas,” he says. “Let’s heat them up.”

So Uenoyama takes the plate and puts it in the microwave oven. It doesn’t get used often so he’s glad to give it purpose. At least his microwave oven has meaning because he sure can’t seem to find his.

Mafuyu brings up Kedama for a few minutes as the pizzas cook. He shows Uenoyama a few pictures on his phone, tells him he’s been keeping his mom good company and Uenoyama asks how she’s doing (a lot better, actually, and Uenoyama still doesn’t know exactly what’s wrong with her or if she’s supposed to get better). Apparently she asked about him and Uenoyama doesn’t have the gall to ask what. 

Then it goes quiet again until they start to eat.

“I always appreciated that you tried so hard to be what I needed back then.”

Uenoyama looks up in surprise. Tomato sauce falls from his mouth back onto his plate. When he registers what Mafuyu is saying, he can’t help but scowl a little bit.

“Even if I couldn’t do it.”

“No one could have. I didn’t know what I needed.”

“Well, it wasn’t me.”

Mafuyu looks at him so sadly that Uenoyama wants to take it back.

“It wasn’t anyone.”

“That’s why we broke up is all I’m saying.”

He keeps being so hurtful when he doesn’t mean to, it just spills out like a waterfall, gushing from his lips. Maybe he has some stuff to get out that he didn’t know about but at what cost? Because Mafuyu looks so upset that  _ Uenoyama _ might cry.

“Yeah,” Mafuyu nods, surprising Uenoyama. Then he reaches over the table and grabs his wrist once more. “But I’m glad I found you again.”

Uenoyama definitely wasn’t expecting  _ that.  _ He looks at Mafuyu’s hand and his heart races. He clenches his hand into a fist, trying to think of what to say - what to do - something - anything -

The moment passes  _ again. _

Mafuyu takes his hand back and maybe it’s too late to kiss him, but at least Uenoyama has enough sense to grab Mafuyu’s wrist this time and pull it back. 

“I’m…  _ really  _ glad,” Uenoyama syas, “that we’re talking again.”

Now Mafuyu is smiling again, just like Uenoyama wanted. He doesn’t think he can fully express to him just  _ how  _ glad he really is, but Mafuyu knows how hard it can be to express oneself.

Except when it comes to video games.

“Fuck!”

“Wow,” Uenoyama laughs. “I’ve never heard you cuss so much.”

“Well, why are you so fucking good? I work all day, I can’t be spending time getting good at  _ Mario Kart. _ ”

“I work too and I still find the time to practice.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, I spend my extra time doing volunteer work.”

Uenoyama shrugs.

“Hey, that’s not on me.”

Mafuyu was clearly expecting Uenoyama to be impressed and when he isn’t, Mafuyu laughs again. The next race starts and Mafuyu immediately knocks his shoulder into Uenoyama’s, trying to make him veer off course. Uenoyama shouts at him, expecting his shoulder to leave in a second’s time, but it remains, and Mafuyu eventually starts pushing so hard that they topple over. 

Mafuyu is in his lap - he’s  _ in Uenoyama’s lap -  _ and he’s so focused on the race that he misses his chance.

Again.

Uenoyama wins again but before he can celebrate, Mafuyu pulls away and puts the controller down. He’s still smiling, but he’s clearly tired.

“I better go.”

Uenoyama’s heart breaks. If something was going to happen, it was going to be tonight. He was so cool and suave at the music store earlier, asking Mafuyu over. But he turns into the worst part of high school - the shy, awkward, scared virgin that didn’t know  _ how  _ to have sex, he just knew he really wanted to. A lot of it was because he’s a bit of a romantic, but there was some teenage sexuality there, too. Some basic hormone stuff. The thing is, that hasn’t really gone away. 

Uenoyama is  _ attracted  _ to Mafuyu. He thought he made that clear earlier. But he couldn’t close the deal when it came down to it - and he  _ knows  _ Mafuyu isn’t going to make the first move.

“Thank you for deciding to talk to me again.”

They’re at the door and Uenoyama cocks his head at him.

“What?”

“I wouldn’t have had anyone here if you didn’t. Hiiragi and Shizusumi are gone. Akihiko and Haruki left, too. Ugetsu is touring the world. I wouldn’t have had anyone.”

“Itaya and Ueki still live here,” Uenoyama says, not that Mafuyu actually cares. “I see them every few months.”

“Oh yeah,” Mafuyu says, recalling their previous conversation. “Maybe we should play basketball sometime.”

Uenoyama actually laughs, thinking back on that. God, he misses that time the most - the awful tension of a crush. The horrible confusion about what to do. The terrible desire coursing through his veins. That’s what he misses. The period of time before getting together with Mafuyu, when he should have realized going to the stairwell to play guitar with him so often that he stopped playing basketball with Itaya and Ueki meant something. 

“Yeah,” he says. “I’ll let them know you’re around.”

“Yeah,” Mafuyu nods. “I’d like to see them.”

“I’ll text them.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

Mafuyu looks past Uenoyama’s head, into his apartment. Then he blinks and starts to turn around.

“Well,” he says. “See you later.”

Something in Uenoyama’s blood tells him to reach out. To grab Mafuyu. To pull him close. And never let go.

Instead, he kisses him. He finally kisses him again. He doesn’t pass up the chance a fourth fucking time, he grabs his face and pulls him in tight. He doesn’t know what Mafuyu is going to do until he wraps his arms around Uenoyama’s neck and pushes into the kiss. It’s lewd. Way too lewd to do out in the open, so Uenoyama pulls him back into his apartment again and shuts the door.

They’re both half undressed by the time they get to the bed. 

“I’m so glad you finally made a move,” Mafuyu says. Uenoyama laughs derisively.

“You can make one next time,” he says. “You know how bad I am at it.”

“I didn’t want to pressure you.”

“I know,” he says. “I appreciate that but I’m not sixteen anymore.”

Mafuyu is pawing at Uenoyama’s jeans. He was always kind of like this. Way more eager than anyone would have guessed. He  _ never  _ stressed Uenoyama out about sex, but the second Uenoyama was horny, Mafuyu didn’t make it a secret that he was, too. He’d mentioned that Yuki was pretty open about how bad he wanted to fuck and Uenoyama was terrified Mafuyu would reject him the way he said he’d reject Yuki. But he wasn’t Yuki. Uenoyama was never Yuki. 

He wasn’t a rebound then. He isn’t a rebound now. Mafuyu really wants to be here with him and for that, Uenoyama is so fucking grateful.

“Just because you’re an adult doesn’t mean you have to be okay with sex all the time.”

“I know,” Uenoyama says monotonously. He straightens up in bed to allow Mafuyu room to get his jeans off. “I’m okay with it right now though, okay?”

Mafuyu looks so fucking lewd when he stares up at him knowingly.

“Have you thought about it?”

“What?”

“Fucking me.”

Uenoyama’s dick twitches in his jeans. Mafuyu got pretty crude a bit, but not always. His dirty talk was always a little unpurposeful, like he was just speaking his mind, and his mind - was dirty as hell.

“I…”

“Ever since I saw you again,” Mafuyu says, “I’ve wondered if you’re still as good in bed as you used to be.”

“I was ever good in bed?”

“Don’t ruin this.”

Uenoyama grins and finally grabs Mafuyu’s hands and pulls them away so he can get his jeans off himself.

“Then get undressed.”

Mafuyu makes some joke about being surprised that Uenoyama has lube and a condom but Uenoyama lets it go, decides to be angry about it later, and instead he gets Mafuyu on his back, kissing him so much that he can hardly find the time to open him. But he does open him, a  _ lot,  _ so much that Mafuyu is shaking before he even enters him. He’s so close already that Uenoyama doesn’t even have to do much which is good because he doesn’t really  _ need  _ much and it would be really embarrassing to finish before Mafuyu.

They’re older now, so sex isn’t really as scary as it used to be and that’s a good thing. Uenoyama’s done this plenty of times by now, so he’s less intimidated, but that doesn’t mean his heart races any less. In fact, he hasn’t felt this nervous during sex since the  _ first  _ time he ever did it with Mafuyu - which, all things considered, wasn’t as bad as it could have been. He fumbled with the condom a bit and had to take a second to calm down before fingering him for the first time, but he got through it and he managed to hold on until Mafuyu came first back then, so he  _ better  _ hold on now. Those were very different nerves, though. Those were anxiety nerves. 

These are… love nerves.

“I love you.”

“I love you, too-”

Uenoyama isn’t even sure who says it first and who replies, he just knows - that they love each other. He knows he never stopped. Maybe Mafuyu moved on. Maybe Mafuyu opened a new chapter in his life. For Mafuyu this is Uenoyama, part two. But Uenoyama has been stuck in part one for years. This chapter never ended for him. And now he’s starting to feel like maybe that’s not such a bad thing.

For all of Uenoyama’s tough talk about sex earlier, he  _ is _ kind of a romantic, so when Mafuyu comes beneath him, he’s less focused on how hot he looks doing it and more on how incredible it feels to be the one making him feel that good again. It’s beautiful because Uenoyama is attracted to the way Mafuyu looks when he’s mid-orgasm, for sure. But it’s also beautiful because Mafuyu has chosen to be intimate with  _ him.  _ Again.

Uenoyama doesn’t afford Mafuyu the same luxury, and he’s never had particularly low self-esteem, but he just can’t imagine it’s robbing him of much. He buries his head in Mafuyu’s shoulder when he comes, and Mafuyu doesn’t make him stop, though Uenoyama suspects that’s because, again, he doesn’t want to pressure him into anything he doesn’t want to do. But he isn’t missing anything. There’s just no way Uenoyama looks as good when he comes as Mafuyu does. Mafuyu likes to put the back of his hand over his forehead, eyes shut tight and mouth apart so indelicately when Uenoyama is inside him. But when he’s finishing, he grabs Uenoyama by the waist and pulls him in further, imploring him to go as deep as he can. His chest heaves upwards and then his back arches and that’s what sends Uenoyama over the edge every time.

Uenoyama can’t breathe when it’s over. He’s not out of shape but he hasn’t had sex in a while so he had to will his hips into some kind of rhythm. He feels so uncoordinated, but Mafuyu never seems to notice. He’s breathing pretty heavily himself, anyway. When Uenoyama pulls out, lube trails out of Mafuyu and Uenoyama has to close his eyes, focus on taking the condom off and tying it, throwing it out, cleaning up or else he’ll be right back to fucking Mafuyu again. Not that Mafuyu wouldn’t want that, but Uenoyama is - tired.

And Mafuyu looks beautiful naked.

He gets back into bed with him and they kiss again for a good, full minute before Mafuyu pulls away.

“You can look at me next time, you know.”

Uenoyama groans in embarrassment. It’s like he can read his mind.

“I’ll try.”

It only occurs to Uenoyama that Mafuyu implied this would happen again when he’s drifting off to sleep next to him, arm curled around his chest, holding him close. It’s too late to wake him and ask him about it, but he definitely goes wide-eyed when he thinks of it. 

Next time. Mafuyu thinks this will happen again.

… Will it?

Is this supposed to happen again? Once it happens a second time, it’s grounds for a conversation about their relationship, right? Or can this be a mistake? It can’t be a  _ mistake  _ \- it meant too much to be something they didn’t mean to do. But is it a mistake to let feelings get in the way like this? Is it a mistake to allow himself to prescribe meaning to it in the first place?

Uenoyama thinks he might be right when he’s awoken while it’s still dark out by Mafuyu putting on his jeans. One eye opens and he rolls over to go back to sleep until he realizes Mafuyu is leaving. His eyes shoot open and he sits up in bed immediately, turning to him in anger, but he softens when Mafuyu notices him and sits back down on the bed, now dressed.

“I’m not bailing, I promise,” he says. “I mean, I have to leave, but I’m not…” He doesn’t know what to say. “If my mom didn’t need me, I’d stay.”

“Oh,” Uenoyama says dumbly, shaking his head. “No, of course. I’ll just…”

“I’ll call you later.”

Uenoyama nods and Mafuyu has to lean pretty far over to kiss him again, but Uenoyama has enough sense right now to let this one sink in. Remember this one. Commit to memory how Mafuyu tastes and smells and looks; how he feels soft and frightening at the same time. He’s everything Uenoyama wants right now, but there’s a pretty good chance he’s not what he needs.

Uenoyama ends up putting on some sweatpants to walk Mafuyu to the door. Once he’s gone, he can’t go back to his bed. Not alone. He flops onto the couch instead and stares at the floor. He feels… happy. It’s such a generic term, but it’s the truth. He feels  _ happiness.  _ Which he knows isn’t an endgame but a state of being. It’ll leave. Something will break this in half and break his heart too, in the process. But for right now, his state is  _ contentment.  _ He  _ loves  _ Mafuyu and Mafuyu loves him back.

The question is if that’s okay.

This isn’t developing a crush. This isn’t meeting someone new and hitting it off. This isn’t the off-handed decision to try dating. It isn’t even choosing to call each other ‘boyfriend.’ It’s much bigger than that. Even the thought of telling his mom and dad - they would definitely be concerned. They’d be pretty happy, but also surprised and ask if he’s sure. Yayoi still feels badly for treating the relationship like it was going to hurt him back in high school, so she’d probably try to encourage it. They’ve both grown up quite a bit since then and Uenoyama forgives her, anyway. But all that is getting way too ahead of himself. The point is that this isn’t like any other relationship. 

This is Mafuyu. This is someone he’s been trying to get over his entire life and now he’s glad he never did.

He can’t get back to sleep. It’s six-thirty so the sun is finally coming up, but he can’t lay here any longer. He takes a shower and gets dressed, then heads to the store. He’ll get some work done. It’ll keep him occupied and surprise his coworkers later today when their job is that much less stressful. CDs and magazines tend to get ignored because they’re not very hot items, so there’s a big box of them in the back. He rips one open and starts the inventory, then takes them out and puts the very small amount of them on the display counter. Then he rips open the box of magazines and he’s surprised by a somewhat familiar face.

“Wow,” he murmurs to himself. It’s him. Mafuyu’s old mentor. Ugetsu. He’s finally on the cover of a music magazine and Uenoyama finds himself curious. He ends up sitting down on the floor with it, flipping through until he finds the article about him. It takes up five pages. There are little quotes all over the place and it’s not like he’s expecting him to mention Mafuyu, but he’s also not expecting him to mention anyone else, either.

But he does.

_ “Back then I didn’t know how to tell people what I felt and I missed my opportunity to tell someone something important. I became unhappy and channeled that into playing. I still have trouble expressing myself but I’m learning how to speak through more than just my music now. I know not to let a moment pass me up or I may lose someone important.” _

Uenoyama didn’t know him. He’s not sure he ever met him, really. He heard about him from Mafuyu - they’d had quite a few conversations during their music lessons, apparently, that made Mafuyu really need someone so he’d come to Uenoyama, vulnerable and open. It wasn’t a bad thing. Ugetsu always seemed like a good guy. But he clearly didn’t know how to handle Akihiko back then, and Mafuyu picked up on it. It frightened him. It frightened Uenoyama, too. All they could do was reassure each other they wouldn’t end up like that. Even if they broke up, they wouldn’t end like  _ that. _

They didn’t end quite as messy as it seems Akihiko and Ugetsu did, but they sure didn’t end cleanly, either.

He wonders where Akihiko and Haruki are now. It wouldn’t be hard to find out. The only reason he let them go was because he couldn’t stand to remember them. They were part of the most important era of his life - but now he’s entering one just as important. He could find them again, see how they’re doing. For all he knows, they got back together.

But there’s something else he realizes he has to do first.

He stands up - it’s about eight now, which is too early for a musician but not too early for a full-time worker. He grabs his phone and sends a text to his singer.

_ I have something I need to talk to you about. _

###  **song 6.**

The beach isn’t lonely just because Uenoyama is there alone. Because he’s not really, there are plenty of other people surrounding him. But he’s waiting for Mafuyu to join him, which he supposes is a metaphor for how their relationship is going right now - only it may be the other way around. Mafuyu has always been halfway there and he’s just waiting for Uenoyama to make his way over. He doesn’t pull him. But he marks his place in the sand pretty firmly and then stares him down, daring him not to come. The way Mafuyu looks at him  _ dares  _ him not to fall back in love. It’s not a threat, but he doesn’t need to threaten him regardless. Uenoyama is coming. He’s on his way.

Mafuyu shows up about twenty minutes late but Uenoyama isn’t keeping track. He doesn’t need to get back to the store today, so he leans against the railing the whole time, staring at the water. He remembers. He remembers the first time they came here. No, he can’t recall what song was in his head or what inside jokes they were telling at the time and the only reason he knows what he was wearing was because they came from school. Memories do fade over time and ten years is a  _ long  _ time. But he doesn’t forget the important parts. The important part was hearing Mafuyu say it. Hearing Mafuyu tell him he liked him. Knowing that the bond they made together wasn't in his own head. It was real and Mafuyu felt it, too.

He’s wearing his work clothes this time. Uenoyama sometimes wishes he needed to wear a button up and slacks to work but as it is, Mafuyu always pulled off nicer attire better than he did. Nothing about Mafuyu screams  _ corporate,  _ but Uenoyama even less so. Mafuyu just seems more at home in those clothes than Uenoyama ever would.

“You look nice.”

“I came from work.”

“I know.”

“I’m wearing my work clothes.”

“I know.”

“I just look like I’m going to work.”

“You look nice when you go to work.”

“You’ve seen me in this before.”

“And you looked nice last time, too.”

Mafuyu grins at him and shakes his head. 

“You know, for your work uniform being a t-shirt and jeans, you look pretty nice, too.”

“Th-”

“Almost like you’re actually trying really hard to look like you’re not trying.”

“Oh, I am,” Uenoyama says. “It’s that effortless look.”

“Exactly.”

“That’s just what failed rock stars look like.”

“Aw,” Mafuyu says. He looks out at the water, too. He’s still smiling a little, but it’s faltered. He pauses. “Don’t call yourself that.”

Uenoyama smiles too, and gazes out once more. The water is really calm and the sun is going to start setting soon. This is exactly how it was back then, too.

“Okay,” he says finally. “That’s just what rock stars who haven’t made it big yet look like.”

Mafuyu turns and his smile returns even larger this time.

“That’s better.”

Uenoyama wants to kiss him again, but he’s never been good at finding the right moment. He’d rather pass the opportunity up than do it at the wrong time. Right now is definitely the wrong time though. He just really wants to do it.

“You know,” Mafuyu says suddenly, “if you just want to ignore it, that’s fine.”

He won’t make eye contact. Uenoyama has to register what he’s implying and when it passes through his brain, he’s shocked. He’s staring at the side of Maufyu’s head as he refuses to look over, instead directing his attention at the water again. He seems… extremely sad.

“I don’t,” Uenoyama says. “Why would I want to ignore it?”

“Well,” Mafuyu starts, looking down at his hands now, “if you just want it to be a physical thing, that’s fine, too.”

“What?!” Uenoyama cries. “No, I don’t want to be friends with benefits.”

“I won’t be upset.”

“I will be.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t want to just have sex with no meaning.”

“Then what do you want?”

“I want you!” Uenoyama shouts. Is Mafuyu an idiot? Does he not understand why Uenoyama asked him to meet him here right now? “What do you think I want?”

Mafuyu seems confused. Uenoyama cannot come up with any good reason as to why.

“I thought you just wanted to be friends,” Mafuyu says. “When we first started talking, you said you just wanted to be friends.”

“Yeah, at that point, I did. That’s what I said.”

“You changed your mind?”

“No.”

Mafuyu turns and stares at him, imploring him to explain.

“I didn’t change my mind because I was lying in the first place,” Uenoyama tells him. “I always wanted to be more than friends. The second I saw you I fell in love with you again. All the work I’d done the past decade to move past it was completely ruined that night.”

Mafuyu seems put out. Not like Uenoyama has put him out, but the opposite. Like he feels ashamed of doing that to him.

“I didn’t want-”

“I didn’t mean it harshly,” Uenoyama says. “I’m trying to tell you that I want you.”

“Like… romantically?”

“Yes,” Uenoyama says. Mafuyu’s eyes go wide. “I love you.”

He can’t be sure, but Mafuyu may finally be having an IT’S MUTUAL moment of his own.

“I love you, too.”

“I know it’s a lot of pressure,” Uenoyama admits. “I know I shouldn’t tell you. But I  _ never  _ got over… us. I was over  _ you.  _ I was able to move on to new relationships… or at least, I moved onto the idea of a new relationship. But… I’ve never been able to forget ours. I’ve never moved on from us. Together.” He breathes out and Mafuyu is silent, so he adds: “We created so much together. It’s impossible for me to let it go.”

All the songs they wrote. All the music they heard in their head. All the times they tried to verbalize it. They tried to tell each other what they were feeling deep inside. They had to learn how to explain the music to each other. They never got it quite right, but Uenoyama has never given up, either. So he hasn’t failed. Not yet.

“But,” Mafuyu says solemnly, “that’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.”

“Huh?”

He opens up finally, stands up straight and grabs Uenoyama’s wrists, holds them tight and stares him in the eyes.

“You won’t feel really fulfilled until you figure out your music,” he says. “You need to create again. Some people were born to do certain things. You were born for music. You need to find it again.”

Uenoyama can’t help but smirk a little bit. He forces his hands out of Mafuyu’s and instead grabs his, interlocking their fingers together. He doesn’t care who’s looking. He pulls Mafuyu towards him a bit.

“I did,” he tells him. “I joined a band.”

“You did?” Mafuyu asks, incredulous.

“Yep,” he nods. “I called my singer up and told him I didn’t wanna play for him anymore in a guest capacity. Either we started a band or I was going to find one myself.”

“What did he say?”

“He was eager,” Uenoyama shrugs. “I think it’s what he wanted all along, anyway.”

Mafuyu smiles at him so warmly that Uenoyama starts to sweat.

“What changed your mind?”

Uenoyama opens his mouth and then pauses. He has to collect his thoughts. He has to remember what Mafuyu does and doesn’t know -  _ who  _ he does and doesn’t know.

“Actually…” Uenoyama thinks for one moment more. “It was an interview I read with that Murata guy.”

“Ugetsu!” Mafuyu shouts.

“Yeah, him.”

“I need to reply to his last email, still.”

“What?” Uenoyama asks, bewildered.

“We were kind of friends, you know.”

“Yeah, but you still contact each other?”

“We email back and forth when we find the time. He likes to keep in touch with fellow geniuses.”

“And I bet he says the same thing to you that you did to me.”

Mafuyu cocks his head.

“What do you mean?”

“You need to find your music again, too.”

Mafuyu’s face falls like Uenoyama just called him out - and he kind of did, so Uenoyama has to hold his ground. He stares seriously into his eyes and Mafuyu looks away, then turns his whole head, then tries to take his hands back but Uenoyama won’t let him. He pulls harder but Uenoyama just tugs him closer. And Mafuyu doesn’t stop him. He falls into his chest, head tilted up to look at him as he speaks:

“I do social work,” he says. “I help kids. I help kids like me get out of abusive homes and I help kids like Yuki deal with mental illness before it’s too late. That’s what I do. There was a time where the thought of touring the country with a famous band would have been a dream come true, but…” He sighs. “You know, sometimes it’s not that dreams don’t come true. It’s not always a failure. Sometimes your dream just… changes.”

Uenoyama watches him carefully. He’s looking for any sign that he’s lying, that he’s talking tough so that he seems okay when he isn’t - but he doesn’t find any. Mafuyu is being honest. He really doesn’t miss the music.

“You do social work to honor Yuki,” he says. Mafuyu doesn’t react. “But you played music to honor him, too.” 

“Yeah,” he admits. “I did.”

“Do you still have his guitar?”

“Of course,” he says quietly. It was his most beloved possession at one point. Uenoyama still thinks about it, the day they met: he had the guitar out of the case. He was hugging it so tightly to his chest. He can’t ever forget how much Yuki meant to him. It used to be that he was jealous but now he finds that he doesn’t really want to forget it. Yuki meant a lot to Mafuyu and Mafuyu means a lot to him. So -

Mafuyu startles him when he says, “You honored Yuki, too.”

“Huh?”

“You honored him too,” he repeats. “You wrote his song.”

Ah. Yeah. That.

“That’s what started pulling us apart,” Uenoyama says bleakly. “I shouldn’t have done it.”

“I didn’t know how to handle it then,” Mafuyu confesses. “But now…”

He lifts himself up and kisses him. Uenoyama is so surprised that he nearly falls over. It’s a quick kiss, chaste, a lot like their first one. Only this time, Mafuyu is the one initiating.

“What was that for?” Uenoyama asks.

“For honoring Yuki.”

Uenoyama might be flushing.

“He was important.”

Mafuyu nods.

“He was.”

“He  _ is,”  _ Uenoyama says. Mafuyu nods again.

“He is,” he agrees. “It hurts to realize that things have gotten easier. It hurts to accept that you’ve moved on from something like that. But I don’t cry about him anymore. It still keeps me up some nights, it’s still… haunting. But I know that… as long as my music is still out there in the world, I’m still honoring Yuki.”

Uenoyama breathes in. He understands. It’s hard to believe that you can ever feel better after death. Especially one as traumatizing as Yuki’s. It’s hard even for Uenoyama to feel okay about moving on; he can’t imagine how Mafuyu feels, especially knowing their last conversation. But that’s always been their foundation: Uenoyama doesn’t assume he knows how Mafuyu feels, and Mafuyu tries to express it the best he can so it isn’t a secret. He’s gotten better over the years.

“Write one more song with me,” he says. “Just one.”

Mafuyu looks pained. He winces, glances away towards the water.

“Why?”

“To honor the music.” Mafuyu looks back at him. “Honor the thing that brought all of us together.”

Mafuyu doesn’t cry. Not in front of people, at least. Uenoyama has rarely seen him  _ yell,  _ much less something as vulnerable as cry. But his eyes look wet right now and Uenoyama thinks it might be kind of terrible, but he sort of wishes he  _ would  _ cry. He wants to see Mafuyu get the emotions out. He wants him to be able to let go.

“Alright,” he says, so quiet that Uenoyama almost can’t hear him. “One more song.”

Uenoyama smiles down at him.

“Let’s start slow.”

Mafuyu nods.

“Okay.”

“We don’t have to be boyfriends just yet.”

“Okay.”

“We’ll just keep seeing each other and see where it goes.”

“Okay.”

“Say something other than okay.”

“Do you want to go back to your place?”

Uenoyama lifts an eyebrow.

“And do what?”

Mafuyu squeezes his hands.

“I want to beat you at Mario Kart.”

###  **part 7.**

And so, Uenoyama hears the music again. 

There’s suddenly something hopeful on the horizon - he knows, realistically, there’s still bad in the world, there’s still a helplessness that he remembers, that he used to feel much stronger than now, and he knows it’s still there. But he was born for this. He was born to make music; he was born to create something. This is what he gives back. He meets up with his singer twice a week, sometimes three or even four times, they start auditions for a drummer and bassist - they talk about a second guitarist, too. Things are going well.

Uenoyama’s life is a crescendo and finding Mafuyu again was the drop.

His fingers have never been so calloused. He’s suddenly full of ideas, though he suspects he was always full of them. Before he had Mafuyu back though, he couldn’t access them. There was some sort of block, some wall in the way, and Mafuyu came in with his wrecking ball ringing in Uenoyama’s ears. When he’s done writing music with his new singer, he goes home to his old one. Mafuyu is his old singer, but that doesn’t mean this new chapter can’t be exciting as the last. In fact, Uenoyama would argue that bringing back an old, beloved character is one of the better parts of reading a good book.

He didn’t expect Mafuyu, but to be fair, Mafuyu says he didn’t expect him, either. He didn’t expect him to be at the venue that night, he didn’t expect him to kiss him on the beach, he didn’t expect him to want to date, he didn’t expect him to sit him down one night and take out his guitar - his  _ old  _ guitar, the Strat he used in high school - and play a new tune for him, a melody that has his foot tapping and head bobbing, and he definitely didn’t expect to hear him say that it was for him. A new song. It’s only fitting that the new chapter has a new song, Uenoyama tells him. Mafuyu kisses him and Uenoyama manages to get the guitar put away safely before Mafuyu pulls him to the bedroom. Uenoyama doesn’t tend to dwell on the sexual stuff, but that’s going well, too. 

_ Really _ well.

They find a drummer. They find a bassist. They’re still out on the second guitarist, but they put together their first song and record it - it’s not the one he wrote for Mafuyu, because he wants that one to be perfect. He wants to get it right. His singer asks if he’d like to start working on that one together, but Uenoyama refuses. He has to bring it to the right state before he can share it with anyone else and his singer respects that. He does, after all, understand love, and their new drummer teases him for it. 

It’s nice. Uenoyama has new friends. He’s playing in a new band. He has a new almost-boyfriend. This is the best crescendo he’s ever heard. In fact, it gives him goosebumps.

Mafuyu shows up with lunch sometimes as a surprise. Well, it’s not really a surprise, because he texts him to make sure he’s actually at the shop, but he never tells him he’s on his way, and it’s nice regardless.

“It’s not as fast paced as Tokyo,” Mafuyu tells him. “I have more time during the day here.”

“Do you like that better or worse?”

“Better,” he says immediately, though he doesn’t seem put out. 

“A part of me is surprised you managed in Tokyo,” Uenoyama says, hoping the playfulness is evident in his voice. “I feel like you’re not suited for a city like that.”

“I liked it a lot,” Mafuyu shrugs. “I might like this better, though. But I don’t know if that’s because of the stress level or because the people I love are here.”

Uenoyama doesn’t say anything about it. He knows Mafuyu loves him. He knows he’s part of that group. He doesn’t need to get embarrassed about it anymore.

“Do you ever feel like you want to go back?” he asks instead. “Like when your mom is better?”

“Maybe,” he shrugs. 

“I don’t know if I’d last in Tokyo,” Uenoyama says, leaning back on the sidewalk. They’re sitting outside with their food, just like in high school. “I could hack it, but I don’t know if I’d like it.”

“You’d be fine.”

“What would I do for money?”

“Play guitar.”

“On the streets?”

“Sure,” Mafuyu says. “Why not?”

“To support myself?”

“Hm,” he reconsiders. “There are music jobs in Tokyo too, you know.”

“I know, I just don’t think I’d make enough to live there.”

“Well, you co-”

He stops, but they both know what he was about to say.  _ You could live with me,  _ are the words he won’t speak. He’s worried it’ll scare Uenoyama off, like it’s moving too fast. But Uenoyama is starting the fourth decade of his life. He’s fine with the idea of going a little quicker. They’re going slow, but it doesn’t have to be like high school.

“It’s okay,” he says softly. “I like thinking ahead.”

Mafuyu lifts his head and looks at him. When Uenoyama looks back, they smile at each other and go back to their lunches.

“By the way,” Mafuyu says, “while I’m here… do you have a copy of that magazine with Ugetsu?”

Uenoyama frowns. It’s been a while since he read that article, but magazines aren’t exactly their highest selling item. Still, he doesn’t order many because of that, so it’s possible he doesn’t have any left.

“I don’t know,” he tells him. “I’ll have to check. Why?”

“I want to read it,” he says. “I want to buy it.”

“If I have an extra you can just have it.”

“No,” he says. “I’ll buy it.”

“Why do you want to read it?”

Mafuyu is quiet. He’s frowning at the ground, trying to gather some thoughts together. Uenoyama knows that face so well. He’s seen it countless times. Mafuyu likes to know what he’s going to say before he says it, though he seems to have gotten a little more cavalier about his feelings than he was when Uenoyama knew him. Still, old habits die hard and Mafuyu definitely pauses for longer than is comfortable.

“He had a real breakdown after Akihiko left him,” he says finally. He seems truly hurt by the statement. Uenoyama isn’t so immature as to think they ever had a romantic connection, but maybe they were a lot closer than he ever realized. “He was starting to have it before Akihiko left him, really. But he won’t tell you how he feels over email. Because he has time to collect himself and stop reacting out of emotion. But in person, he…” Mafuyu clearly has some memories that Uenoyama isn’t privy to - and never will be. “He has breakdowns differently than others. You didn’t know him well but he doesn’t really let people know how he’s feeling.”

Uenoyama knows that he shouldn’t be thinking about how pretty Mafuyu is right now, but he’s staring at his worried face and it’s all he can register. He doesn’t like that Mafuyu is stressed, he doesn’t think  _ that’s  _ pretty - he just thinks Mafuyu is beautiful no matter what.

“Maybe that’s why you got along.”

Mafuyu looks up at him, concerned.

“I try not to keep how I’m feeling from people.”

“I know.”

“It was never that I didn’t want people to know,” he says. “It was that I didn’t know how to let them know.”

“I know.”

“Ugetsu… Ugetsu clearly felt human emotion. But he wouldn’t let anyone know it for sure.”

“Well,” Uenoyama sighs, “I guess he got over that.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, the quote I read was about talking about his feelings,” he informs him. “He said he let something important pass him by and now he doesn’t want to lose anything else, so he makes sure he can tell people how he feels with more than just his music.” Uenoyama pauses. “Well, that’s paraphrasing, but it was the gist of it.”

“That’s… pretty clearly about Akihiko,” Mafuyu says with a small laugh.

“Right?” 

“Well,” Mafuyu says, taking in a deep breath. “I guess he found his music again.”

“Found his music?”

“He’d lost it for a while after it all happened. That’s what he told me, at least. But he… it’s not just that he’s good at violin. He is. But it’s that he’s so good at burying things down deep that you wouldn’t be able to tell through his playing that anything was wrong. Somehow he could just turn it off. And then we’d end up on the kitchen floor and he’d… turn it on again.” Mafuyu shakes his head. “Anyway, I knew what he meant when he said it. There’s a passion to music. And when it goes away…”

He doesn’t keep going because he doesn’t want to implicate Uenoyama. He doesn’t want to bring up old disagreements. They’ve talked about this enough, they both know how the other feels. And Mafuyu was right - Uenoyama needed the music. He had lost it, and now it’s back. Mafuyu never lost it, he simply stopped needing it the way Uenoyama does. And that’s fine. The world is missing out on a seriously amazing singer - and his words in high school were nothing to sneeze at, so he must have only gotten better since then - but Mafuyu found that his calling was something else. He’s helping people. That’s part of what Uenoyama fell in love with again.

But… 

“I have a new band,” he says quietly, “but I still don’t really feel it.”

This is the most concerned Mafuyu has looked in weeks. He drops his food and turns his entire body to Uenoyama, clearly worried.

“What?”

“I don’t want to quit,” he assures him. “I love the new band. You were right that I needed it. But… nothing will ever feel like given did.”

Mafuyu is quiet, then nods sadly.

“I know.”

“So it’s pointless to chase that feeling,” Uenoyama shrugs. “I can’t get it back. I… have to find a new feeling.”

“Yes,” Mafuyu nods fervently. “You can’t go back in time, but you can’t let the agony of knowing that stop you from living with the time you have.”

“I guess that chapter really is over,” Uenoyama says. “I wanted it back for so long, but… I don’t know. We’re back together. But given can’t really be given ever again. Even if the four of us…” He was going to say it wouldn’t be the same even if Akihiko and Haruki were able to come together, because the  _ time  _ isn’t the same. It won’t feel like it did when he was sixteen and fearless, with an entire life ahead of him. He’s thirty now and has a lot of life behind him. But he doesn’t want to say it, because it hurts too much.

“Just because the next chapter has a new plot doesn’t mean it can't involve old characters,” Mafuyu says. “One may be over, but don’t let that stop you from seeing the one that’s beginning.”

Uenoyama smiles and Mafuyu smiles back. He leans in, touches his hand, and Mafuyu closes the gap, kissing him deeply but softly, as gentle and innocent as their first. Uenoyama is really in love. He hasn’t felt the way Mafuyu makes him feel since - well, since Mafuyu first made him feel this way. 

There’s a cough from above them and Uenoyama is still a little embarrassed about public displays of affection, so he pulls away quickly and looks up to find his singer is standing over him.

“Hi.”

Uenoyama stands up quickly and Mafuyu follows suit, cleaning up their garbage. Uenoyama makes introductions and then Mafuyu gives him a hug before leaving. His singer stands there, waves goodbye and then grins at Uenoyama.

“So is that the old singer?”

“What?”

“That’s your old singer.”

“How could you possibly know that?”

“I studied that one song backwards and forwards,” he says. “I loved that guy’s voice. I recognize it.”

“Whatever,” Uenoyama mumbles.

“I didn’t know you two were - you know.”

“Can I help you with something?” Uenoyama is irritated but his singer grins.

“I have huge news.”

“Okay,” Uenoyama says, folding his arms. “Found a guitarist?”

“Way bigger than that.”

Uenoyama is intrigued.

“Yeah?”

“A manager heard our song.”

Uenoyama’s heart skips a beat.

“Yeah?”

“They want us to play backup for an opening act.”

“What?”

“And then  _ be  _ an opening act.”

“What?”

“On tour.”

_ “What?” _

“All four of us,” he says. “They want all four of us and if it goes well, who knows? Dude, this could be it. This is what makes us bigger than just playing local venues, hoping someone will hear our demo.”

“I know managers,” Uenoyama says. “If we wanted -”

“But this is something we got on our own,” the singer says. “This is something we did, they heard, and they wanted.”

“A tour?” Uenoyama grins. 

“A tour.”

That’s it.

Uenoyama finds it.

The passion.

Creating is important. Creating is the most important part - but showing that creation off - connecting with other people over it, discovering that you’re not alone - that’s the other piece of the puzzle.  _ Playing for people.  _ Playing shows, feeding off the energy. That’s what it was back then. It was knowing that his bandmates had his back, and showing that off. Everyone in the audience was a witness to their synchronicity, to their ability to  _ create  _ together.

That’s what Uenoyama was missing.

He needs that again.

“When is it?”

His singer pauses. He even kind of looks over his shoulder, as if he’s worried someone might overhear and just as quickly as Uenoyama felt that  _ passion  _ again - he feels dread.

“Well, that’s the thing…”

His heart races.

“What?”

“We’d leave in a week…”

“Oh,” he breathes.

“And the other thing…”

Uenoyama closes his eyes.

“Yeah?”

“It’s global.”

His eyes spring back open.

“Global?”

“Two years.”

“Two  _ years?” _

“It’s a lot,” the singer acknowledges. “I know. But it’s massive. I don’t even know if everyone else is in, so… take some time and think it over.” He looks over his shoulder again and now Uenoyama gets why - he’s wondering if Mafuyu is going to be the reason Uenoyama says no. “Really think about it. It’s massive.”

He takes off after that, leaving Uenoyama to stand there, wondering if  _ this  _ is actually the drop.

###  **song 8.**

For as cool as people say Uenoyama is, he’s never had much of a poker face. The thing is, he’s usually frustrated or anxious, not miserable. But when he opens the door that night for Mafuyu, the other man can tell something isn’t right. He lets him in but Mafuyu doesn’t move away from the doorway.

“What’s wrong?”

“I have bad news.”

Mafuyu’s jaw locks into place. That’s what he did when they broke up the first time, too. He stood there, blank-faced and emotionless, save for the fact that his entire body tensed. 

“Oh,” he says pointedly. That one  _ oh  _ is an entire statement - Mafuyu thinks he knows what’s happening, but he’s wrong. Uenoyama shakes his head. It’s not about breaking up. At least, Uenoyama doesn’t want to break up. That’s not the problem. Can they even break up? They’re not really together yet.

“No,” he assures him. “It’s not like that.”

“Okay,” Mafuyu says like he doesn’t believe it. “Then what is?”

Uenoyama finally closes the door. He closes his eyes and runs his hands down his face. This is truly torture. The only thing harder than telling Mafuyu about the choice he has to make is actually making the choice itself. 

“My singer came to me,” he says. “Some people wanna book us.”

“Book you?”

“For a tour.”

Mafuyu lights up.

“How is that bad news?”

“It’s… two years.”

Mafuyu’s face falls.

“Oh.”

“And it’s international.”

His face evens out again. It’s like he got  _ so  _ upset that he cycled around to feeling neutral again.

“Oh.”

Yeah. Oh.  _ Oh.  _ That’s all Mafuyu can say and Uenoyama doesn’t really blame him. It’s what he was thinking the whole conversation, anyway.  _ Oh.  _

“It’s a lot to think about,” Uenoyama tells him.

“It sure is.”

“Take off your shoes. Come in.”

So Mafuyu does but he crosses to the couch pretty immediately and sits down. Uenoyama was going to make more pizza tonight but now he’s not hungry at all.

“There are a lot of moving parts.”

Mafuyu suddenly turns confused - and that confuses Uenoyama. 

“How?”

“What?”

“How?”

“How what?”

“How are there moving parts?” he asks. “You’re working at a music shop with other employees. You teach lessons. Your family is fine. You can leave that for a while. It’s only two years.”

Uenoyama cocks his head to the side. Is he doing this on purpose? Or does he really not realize…?

“Okay, but you’re leaving out the most important part.”

“What?”

“You.”

He does seem genuinely surprised to hear that. He really  _ didn’t  _ realize that he was a part of this and Uenoyama can’t understand why..

“You shouldn’t factor me into this.”

“Why?” Uenoyama asks, almost angrily. “Why shouldn’t I? I worked at this relationship. I worked for it, I worked to get it back. I want it. I want this relationship.”

“But two years?” Mafuyu asks, a small smile on his face. “That’s nothing. We were already apart for… ten.”

“Then you want to date long distance?”

He goes quiet. He looks down at his hands in his lap. Uenoyama is a little surprised. He was expecting an affirmation, some sort of comfort that two years long distance would be the most of his problems. 

But Mafuyu doesn’t seem to feel the same way.

“No,” he says quietly. “I don’t.”

There are only two more possibilities.

“You want to come with me?”

“No,” he says quicker. “I can’t.”

Uenoyama knew that. He was just making sure.

“Then what do you want to do?”

Mafuyu doesn’t answer at all. Uenoyama’s chest tightens. He realizes how easy his life has been up to this point. All the other bad stuff - besides losing Mafuyu the first time - was nothing compared to this. He  _ worked  _ for this because he  _ wanted  _ it. It can’t get taken away like this. That’s not fair. He should get to have Mafuyu if Mafuyu wants him to. 

Then he remembers: this is his choice. He’s making this decision. He actually sort of lights up.

“Then I won’t go.”

“Don’t,” Mafuyu says, surprising Uenoyama once again. “You  _ can’t _ factor me into this.”

“I have to.”

“No,” Mafuyu says, looking up at him finally, his eyes fierce and voice louder than usual. “You don’t. We’re not boyfriends. We’re not serious. We’re just getting to know each other again. I’ll be here in two years.”

“What if you aren’t, though?”

Mafuyu knows that’s a very real possibility. His mother will get better - or God forbid, he’ll lose her completely - and he’ll have no reason to stay anymore. Uenoyama supposes he doesn’t have too much of a connection here, either. He could always go to Mafuyu after the tour.

“I…”

“That’s two years,” Uenoyama says. “Two years we just… miss out on.”

“You won’t miss out on anything,” Mafuyu smiles. “You’ll be touring the world. If you  _ don’t  _ go, you’d be missing out.”

“So you’ll wait for me?”

It should be easy. It should be an automatic yes. If Mafuyu asked Uenoyama for the same, he wouldn’t hesitate. He wouldn’t have to think. Of course he’d wait. Two years? Mafuyu’s the one who just said two years is no time at all. But he doesn’t say anything and Uenoyama feels it. The same feeling he had the first time they broke up. 

Only this time, Mafuyu isn’t taking the music with him.

His heart is splitting into two, he can feel it physically in the cavity of his chest, breaking right in half. He actually reaches to rub his skin through his shirt, hoping a small massage will pick his heart back up.

It doesn’t work.

He loves Mafuyu. He loves music.

But which one does he love more?

“I don’t want to make promises I can’t be sure about,” Mafuyu finally says. “If I break the promise, it’ll hurt so much.”

“Then you were lying,” Uenoyama says. 

“What?”

“You were lying before when you said two years is nothing,” he says angrily. “Two years means something if you don’t think you can wait that long.” He doesn’t say  _ if you loved me, you’d wait,  _ because he knows that’s manipulative - and Mafuyu understands how serious an ultimatum in a relationship is. He gave one to Yuki. “It’s just… you really can’t? You really can’t promise that?”

“I can’t,” he says. “And neither can you.”

Uenoyama stares at him coldly. That’s an accusation. That’s telling Uenoyama he’ll be like fucking Mick Jagger or something, totally unable to stay faithful for two years just because they aren’t physically together. 

Or maybe it’s a confession. Maybe it’s Mafuyu admitting  _ he  _ wouldn’t be able to.

“I’m not going.”

“Uenoyama.”

“I’m not.”

“You need to go.”

“Why?” Uenoyama shouts. “Why do I have to go? I don’t want to go!”

“But you do. You want to go. I know you do, you want to play music and you want to play it for people, don’t you? You want to create something that other people take in. You want to be the reason someone feels something.” He pauses. “Through music.”

That’s when Uenoyama starts to cry.

He wants to go. He wants to go so bad.

“You want to find passion in music again,” Mafuyu continues. “I know you do. The only reason you wouldn’t do this is because of me. If we hadn’t started talking again, you wouldn’t be considering this. This would be a dream true. And I don’t want you to resent me. I want you to live your life. I want you to… meet new people and try new things and… make music again. It’s not fair to either of us to keep yourself from it.”

Uenoyama’s tears are angry now, but he’s not mad with Mafuyu. He’s furious with the situation, with whatever higher being decided  _ this  _ was the choice he had to make.

“But you can’t promise me you’d still be here when I get back?”

Mafuyu’s shoulders fall. His brows furrow and he might be trying not to cry, too.

“It’s not that I can’t,” he says. “It’s that I won’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because if I do, you’ll go, but you won’t really be  _ present,”  _ he says. “You’ll think about coming back. You won’t let yourself get caught up in it. I want you to get caught up in it. I don’t want this to be a one-time thing, especially if that’s what you decide you want. And… if you decide you do want that. If you decide what you want is to be a rock star… I don’t want you to choose it over me. It’s selfish. But I’d rather not be part of the equation at all.”

Uenoyama shakes his head and looks away. He can feel his face starting to freeze into a perpetual scowl, wrinkles surely forming as he sits here crying. This isn’t  _ fair.  _ This should be  _ easier.  _ He shouldn’t have to  _ choose  _ between love and music, but Mafuyu is making him. And Mafuyu is making him pick music.

“Listen,” Mafuyu says. He scoots closer and puts his hands on Uenoyama’s face gently. He doesn’t pull him; Uenoyama turns to him on his own. “I want you to know this. So listen.”

“What?”

“When I needed someone the most, Yuki was there for me. As a kid, as a teenager, in high school… Hiiragi and Shizusumi - they were my friends, but Yuki was the one who was _there._ He’s the one who held my hand while they took my dad away. He’s the one who told me what my dad did wasn’t right. And then I lost him. I lost him because of something I said to him. I’ve grown up since then and I understand the situation more fully now, but I’ll never let go of that guilt. I’ve accepted that. But when I lost Yuki… I needed someone even more. I lost the only person who had always been there for me and I was lost myself. And then… I don’t know, one day you just showed up and fixed my guitar for me. Fixed Yuki’s guitar for me. I thought I knew what it was like to have someone who was there for me when I needed them most, and then I met you. You were the one who helped me pick up even more pieces of myself than Yuki did. It wasn’t always easy for us, but you did your best to respect Yuki. Yuki loved me, and I loved him. But you were on a different level.”

“Mafuyu-”

“It’s not fair to compare you two, I know,” he says. “It’s not fair to make you compete. It’s not fair to either of you or to me. You’re both who you are, you’re both unique and you’re both a huge part of my life. But…” He breathes in and Uenoyama finally sees the tears in his eyes. “I think you may have loved me more than anyone else in my life ever has.”

He manages to keep the tears from falling, but Uenoyama doesn’t. He shuts his eyes tight, letting more leak out and his heart is completely broken now. 

“You did so much for me,” Mafuyu tells him. “Let me do something for you.”

Uenoyama sucks in some air. It’s punctured by little sobs but he manages to fill his lungs regardless.

“Then I need you to understand something, too.”

Mafuyu blinks once and then nods.

“Okay. What is it?”

“Back in high school,” Uenoyama begins, “I  _ had  _ lost my passion. I just… couldn’t play the way I used to. Haruki and Akihiko - given wouldn’t have worked without them, but I guess they just weren’t the full spark I needed. Then I met you and you were just… unshakeable. I couldn’t get rid of you. And then… you know what happened. You joined and I guess that was the last little push I needed to find that spark again. You already helped me rediscover it once. This is the  _ second  _ time you’ve done it. So don’t ever say you never did anything for me. I want you to know that. I want you to know you’re the most important person I’ve ever had in my entire life. Even when I didn’t have you anymore.”

And even though he won’t have him once again, that’s the implication. No matter how apart they are, no matter what comes between them, it doesn’t change the fact that Mafuyu is his soulmate. And maybe he’s not Mafuyu’s - maybe that was Yuki. But Uenoyama’s okay with that now. He’s not  _ okay -  _ but he’s accepted it. He can accept that soulmates aren’t soulmates because everything works out. They’re soulmates because they’re right for each other. They’re soulmates because they make the other better. They’re soulmates until the end; until the lights flicker to signify last call.

Mafuyu kisses him and through tears, they love each other one last time. It’s slow and sad and a week later, Uenoyama is in a cab on the way to the airport. The only bag he has with him is his guitar. He’s meeting the band there and this is it - they’re leaving for a two-year tour. The singer asks him if he’s okay - he knows what Uenoyama gave up for this - and when Uenoyama doesn’t answer, he says,  _ “It’ll be alright. If nothing else, I’m sure you’ll write a killer song about it.”  _ He has to smile. It’s true. Mafuyu brought the music back.

Roads are long and skies are vast but Uenoyama is going to do something new - though as the plane takes off, he realizes that even the greatest rock stars will come home eventually.


	2. post-script.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the epilogue.

###  **there's never really a last song because the music never ends.**

Europe was a culture shock but America was something else. They flew half of it and drove the other half and Uenoyama couldn’t believe how long it would take to get to the other side of the same state. They were also a lot more careful there, healthcare is a nightmare and Uenoyama was not going to get stuck with a broken bone and a thousand dollar bill. Australia was pretty cool and the Middle East was a fascinating couple of months. All in all, the geographical experience was really eye-opening. Learning new customs was difficult and Uenoyama would be hard-pressed not to admit he got pretty homesick, but mostly because he doesn’t have to worry about accidentally offending someone back home.

As for the rest of the experience…

The first few weeks were so wild he hardly had time to be homesick yet. They were mostly learning the songs they were going to be playing and Uenoyama didn’t have time to write anything of his own. They wouldn’t be playing their own material until the second half of the tour, anyway. He hardly knew the bassist or drummer yet either, so he was quick to forge new friendships with them. He had to. It was going to be two years with these guys and thankfully, they were very cool. Those were some of the greatest times, if only because he didn’t worry about much but getting the riff down exactly right and not overeating at the venues.

It was about three months in that he got a text message from a number he didn’t know - it was Haruki, who had just heard the news and was congratulating him. He said he was proud and couldn’t believe Uenoyama was really doing it, which made him tear up a little. Haruki was always a little more sentimental and Uenoyama missed him more than anything else in the world in that moment. It was hard to think about given, especially when he got another mysterious text a week later, this time from Akihiko. He said the same spiel, he was so excited for him - and then an apology. He said it was his fault given broke up and Uenoyama’s chest gave way again. He doesn’t want to lay blame on anyone, he never did. It wasn’t anyone’s fault. And he told him that. _“Feelings sneak up on us,”_ he’d texted back. _“We can’t do much about them other than try our best.”_

Of course he spoke to Mafuyu a bit, but that was a lot harder.

He nearly crossed paths with Ugetsu once, but it’s not like he would have stopped to talk to him. They weren’t in the same venue but in the same town in Austria for one night. It wasn’t something Uenoyama gave much thought to except to realize how small the world really is, even at a time he felt like it would never end. He’d fly for hours and never be done touring it. 

It was six months in that they started writing their own music. It worked well because they were so close by then that they knew each other intimately, they knew how the others worked and they knew how they _didn’t_ work. It was magical to create something again. To have nothing become something by his own hands. It was their drummer that actually wrote the words for their first song. It was about his wife and it made Uenoyama sad, but he couldn’t really stop to think about that. He had so much going on; being depressed just wasn’t an option.

But the singer finally asked him if he’d like to write one, and Uenoyama swallowed down hard, checked to make sure his heart was still there, and nodded.

He wrote Mafuyu a song. He didn’t give much thought at the time to the fact that he’d have to play that song every other night eventually. When the singer first read the lyrics, he smiled sadly and said, _“I’m really sorry,”_ but Uenoyama shook his head. _“It’s no one’s fault,”_ he told him. _“Least of all yours. I’m glad I’m here. I’m glad I chose it.”_

He’s not sure if that was the truth or not, but he sure was having a good time. 

That song was a little morose to become a single, but it was on their demo and became a regular in their set when they finally started as an opening act. Uenoyama told them he’d like to write a happier song sometime soon, but he wasn’t sure he could yet. The bassist told him to take his time, they all missed home and made certain sacrifices to be here, so he didn’t need to rush. Uenoyama was grateful and he cried later that night when he was alone. He missed Mafuyu. But he missed Haruki and Akihiko, too.

He missed given.

That’s what it was. He couldn’t put his finger on it until then. Until his new band started feeling like his old one and nothing like it at the same time. They were becoming closer and closer, more and more like family, and it made Uenoyama remember the one he lost. A family he’ll _never_ have again. Even if he went home and Mafuyu was standing there with an engagement ring, he’d never have given back and that’s what killed his passion. That’s what destroyed him, made him rot from the inside out. 

He missed music. So the first time the lights went down after their opening act, he started crying, too. He wasn’t the only one, though. Everyone was stressed out and anxious and terrified and it went so well that they all had to let it out somehow. They comforted each other, reassured one another this was happy crying and to be sure, it was. He’d found the music again. He was finally starting to feel like this was it. This could be it. This could be what he was waiting for.

They spent a year fine tuning their songs. The plan was to record the full album when they got back to Japan and see what happened from there. They were all on board for another tour - even the drummer, who said they’d like his wife, she was even funner than he is. Uenoyama believed it. He wondered out loud if anyone else had anyone to bring with them next time, but the bassist and singer shook their heads, though the singer looked at him knowingly.

_“It won’t happen,”_ he told him later. _“I already asked him once.”_

_“Oh,”_ he replied. _“I’m still really sorry.”_

_“It’s okay. I’m glad I’m here.”_

The crying fits he had before were _nothing_ compared to their last show. _Those_ were sad for the most part, but also pretty relieved that they were going home. For two years this _was_ their home - planes, hotels, busses, concert halls. Those were the only places they went. Well, they went out to clubs and bars quite a bit - a _lot,_ actually - but Uenoyama tended to come back earlier than everyone else. He wasn’t super into the groupie thing and anyway, most of them were girls. The drummer would usually accompany him back, not because his wife would get jealous, but because he missed her. He wanted to call her. Uenoyama wanted to call someone, too.

But he didn’t.

He had to let it go. He had to let Mafuyu go. It’s not like they _never_ spoke - they texted a few times a month. Mafuyu always asked every few weeks how he was doing and Uenoyama held a conversation. He didn’t give petty, one-word responses. He was honest. He said he missed Japan, he missed Mafuyu. And Mafuyu was honest in return: he missed him, too. One night he even said it. He admitted he wished he hadn’t told him to go, but only because he hated that he was gone. But Uenoyama thinks he’d had a little bit to drink. His mother was getting better finally and he was celebrating. So he never mentioned it again. 

It was actually the beginning of their last week on tour that he got the text:

_“So did you find your passion again?”_

He didn’t reply. He played Mafuyu’s song so hard that night that he had to replace his strings afterwards. He did. He found his passion again. Or better yet, he figured out what his passion is. 

His passion _is_ music. But -

“The first thing I’m gonna do is take a bath in my _own_ tub,” the bassist says in the cab. 

“I’m hugging my wife.”

“Hugging,” the singer says. “Sure.” He pauses. “I’m gonna throw out the food I left in the fridge on accident.”

“Oh, God,” Uenoyama says. “What did you leave in there?”

“Who knows?”

“It’s probably its own lifeform by now.”

“What’s the first thing you’re gonna do, Uenoyama?”

Uenoyama smiles. Mafuyu is still living with his mom, at the same house. The same house Uenoyama went to see him in when he was sick after given’s first show. Memories fade. But that one is sort of eternal.

“I think I’m gonna take a nap.”

He’s dropped off at his place. The landlord let him basically sublet the place - only it was all official and he had a lease, so it wasn’t really subletting, but whatever - to some other single guy and he’s a little nervous to see the state of it. But he doesn’t go inside. He has exactly what he left here two years ago with: his high school guitar on his back, wallet in his pocket, and that’s it. He stands outside his apartment for a few moments as the cab drives off, staring at the ground.

It’s weird. He’s been surrounded by people for two years and now he’s alone. He’s alone for at least two weeks before they’re going to all be together again to start recording. Of course, they’re doing it in town, so they get to go home afterwards but still - he’ll be seeing them again all day at least four times a week. So he should get his alone time now that he can take it, but the last thing Uenoyama actually wants right now is to be alone. He turns and starts walking.

The first thing Mafuyu does when he opens the door is tear up.

“You’re back?”

“Yeah.”

“I thought you had another week.”

“Why’d you think that?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, I’m back.” He pauses. “And you’re…”

He doesn’t want to say it. He doesn’t really know. He had a few hook-ups on tour, but nothing big. He didn’t meet anyone important - not romantically. But he doesn’t know if the same is true for Mafuyu. He needs him to say it. He needs him to tell him whether or not -

“I’m still here.”

Uenoyama lets out a huge breath upon hearing the words. He looks over Mafuyu’s shoulder. No one’s around so he leans in and kisses him.

“You were right,” he tells him as Mafuyu’s eyelashes flutter below him. “I did find my passion while on tour. And wouldn’t you know - it was you all along.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this fic took a lot out of me. the idea of soulmates being people who make us better and help us make the world better but not always being someone we end up with is something i write about a lot. usually i do happy endings though so i was genuinely emotional writing this, thinking about how sometimes people are meant to play a huge role in our life but not necessarily stay in it forever. on my death bed there will be people i think about who i haven't seen in decades. sometimes i think about what a second chance with them would be like, but dwelling on it is torture, so i have to stop myself from thinking about it too much.
> 
> in the end though, i remembered that's why life sucks sometimes. fic is for fun. so i ended it how i wanted it to end c:

**Author's Note:**

> you can find me on [twitter](http://www.twitter.com/UgetsuMurataaaa) if you want - i am always screaming about Ugetsu there


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